Make a Box Road

The obsession with this box road is real.

I saw the box sitting in the garage and just knew: we could use this for a road map. We could build with this. This could be the center of play for the day. Little did I know how beloved this box road would become…

RELATED: Wonder how I teach my children? Check out my Playing Preschool program filled with simple daily activities like this.

It was a magical box road… no joke.

I grabbed some scissor and quickly opened the box up to make it lay flat.

It took about 15 seconds to draw a simple, not fancy, and not expertly done road on the cardboard.

The scene was set.

Now to add in the “tools”.

Here are the toys I grabbed for my kids:

I made this for my 4 year old and 3 year old as a way to help solve the day’s problem: no one was playing well together. They needed common ground. A homemade road from Mom was exactly what they needed.

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To help jump start their play, I set down our bins of:

• Blocks
• Cars
• Small animals

It wasn’t anything fancy but man, was this effective.

Almost immediately my kids got to work…

Mr. Rogers taught us that “Play is the work of childhood” and we so badly need to honor this.

Yes, my kids were play here with these toys but they were working. Hard.

It takes a lot of high level thinking skills to make up the kind of decisions and imaginary play that they needed.

RELATED: Check out these fun ways to play with a cardboard box!

This silly box road stayed up for a week

I had no idea when I set up this road that it would become the centerpiece for play that it did.

When my 6-year-old got home from Kindergarten, he immediately jumped in with the littles. So did Dad when he got home from work.

This box went from something so simple and basic to something my family treasured. It stayed up in our family room for a full week before I finally needed to vacuum and had to put it away… who knows how long it actually would have lasted!

Good activities do not need to be complicated!

There’s a rumor going around that toddler activities need to be fancy and complicated and full of gorgeous supplies or parent made crafts.

That’s just not the case.

Our kids don’t need fancy and expensive. They need simple and engaging and this box road is 100% the truest example of that.

RELATED: Looking for more easy toddler activities? I’ve got a whole list of them!

Go grab a box and get to work!

This was one of the best activities my whole family has done in a long time. I want nothing more than to bring this magical setup into your home.

Make a box road TODAY.