As a stay at home mom I am constantly trying to provide my toddler with activities that will either build her social skills, enrich her mind or allow her simply play and have fun. As an Eco-Warrior I am trying to waste as little as possible. As a rule of thumb I also always try to spend as little money as possible since I’m not bringing any in. These simple DIY activities check so many of the above mentioned boxes. The next time you get anything large delivered, consider turning that box into something fun! Or better yet, turn it into multiple fun things!

When our Amazon order of diapers and wipes was delivered we laughed at how large the box was, but my 2 1/2 year old daughter squealed with delight. To her, this ridiculously over-sized delivery box meant possibilities.

1.Build a Nest or Fort

The first thing we did was throw some pillows and blankets into the opened box and our daughter, Jojo, promptly curled up in her new nest. She has been really into nest building recently. I think it’s because it’s spring and the birds have all come back. Or maybe she saw something about nests in a Daniel Tiger episode? Who knows. Either way, it’s super cute and this phase of re-purposing the box was good for several days of fun.

2. Build an Airplane

After Jojo tired of her nest and we tired of having this giant box taking up space in our not-so-giant living room, I got her super psyched to turn the box into an airplane! Thankfully, since she is so young she still has a very wild imagination and fills in a ton of the blanks for any design flaws I have when building said plane. All it really needs is two wings. But since there are four flaps to use, we were able to turn the remaining two into a nose and tail for the plane. A paper plate was all we needed for a steering wheel. The actual building of the plane takes a nice chunk of time, and then playing in it for a while takes another nice chunk. But to really max out on your experience you should decorate it!

3. Decorate the Airplane

This is the best part – there are so many possibilities here! If your kid is into stickers right now, then slap all the stickers you have on that sucker. If you want to get crazy, use glitter glue or something equally as flashy. We took our cardboard airplane outside to paint using basic tempera paints and went full creativity mode by walking around the yard and finding various objects to use as our brushes. We used sticks, pine cones, leaves and even some flowers. It was really fun to see her get creative and to have her understand that it can be really fun and effective to, ahem, think outside of the box when it comes to doing things ; )