We’ve all been there…we spend time and money picking out a toy for our child, and after our little one opens it up, all he wants to do is play with the box it came in! Even though I am admittedly a total toy addict (check out my blog post about some of my favorite toys for building language), I always say that it doesn’t really matter what toy you use—what matters is how you use it. Here are a few of my favorite ways to build language and learning with a simple cardboard box.
1. Use it for a game of “What’s in the Box?” Gather random objects from around the house and place them inside when your child isn’t looking. Describe one object at a time. Give clues about the shape, size, color, what it’s used for, etc. Have your child try and guess what it is. Then switch roles and let your child give the clues and you guess.
2. Make it into a musical instrument. Piggybacking off #1, you can shake the box of random items and make “music.” Better yet, if you have a child with hearing loss who is working on sound detection, you can shake the box (or knock on it) outside your child’s field of vision and look for a response. Encourage your child to continue to respond to the sound by pointing to your ear and saying, “Yes, you heard the box!”
3. Still have lots of random objects in your box? If so, use them as an opportunity to work on conditioned play audiometry. Conditioned play audiometry is just a fancy phrase for “listen and drop,” where your child holds an object up to his ear and then drops the object into the box once he hears a sound. This is a great way to build early listening skills and to practice for audiology appointments.
4. For little ones, use the box for hide and seek or peek-a-boo. You can hide items underneath the box and knock on the box (be sure to talk or sign out loud about what you’re doing: “knock-knock-knock”). With an excited, expectant look, ask your child, “Who/what is it? Should we open? Ooooopen!” and then play with whatever item is underneath the box while using lots of language.
5. Make it into a car ramp or a slide for toys. Angle the box downward and push cars or stuffed animals down the ramp/slide. Think of all the language you can use with this…up, down, stop, go, fast, slow…describe the cars (“red car, big car, loud car,” etc), describe the stuffed animals…so many opportunities for language!
6. For older children, use the box for a barrier game. Barrier games are activities where a barrier is placed between two people (hence the name) and each player takes turns giving directions about what to do (e.g. “Draw a yellow sun in the middle of your picture.”). In order for this to work, both players need to have access to the same materials. In this case, you can grab two boxes of crayons or markers and sit across from your child on opposite sides of the box. You can take turns describing to one another what to draw. Barrier games can target SO many language concepts: prepositions (i.e. all those location words like “in, on, next to, above, below,” etc), quantity concepts (“more, less, just one, many,” etc), adjectives, sequencing (“first do X, then do Y,” or “before you do X, do Y”), basic concepts like same/different, shape, color, etc. You can use this activity for solving riddles (e.g. “Draw something that is round and yellow that you see in the sky”) or even for targeting early literacy skills like rhyming (e.g. “Draw something that you see in the sky at night and rhymes with ‘spoon’”).
7. Depending on its size, you can use the box for all different kinds of pretend play. If it’s large enough, use it for a fort. Other ideas: make it into a boat, a car, a castle, a dinner table, a counter in a store, a conveyor belt in a grocery checkout line…the list goes on!
8. Use it for a puppet show. Grab some puppets (you could also make some simple ones out of brown paper bags or turn off the lights and do shadow puppets with your hands) and use the box as a stage for your puppet show.
9. Make the box into a mailbox. Cut a slit into the side of the box so that your child can “mail” letters to a special someone. There are so many ways you can infuse language and learning into this. There are the obvious vocabulary words that go along with a mail theme (mail carrier, postage stamp, envelope, letter, mail truck, package etc), but here are other ideas to get you started.
· for young babies: “in, out, open, all gone, where did it go?”
· for toddlers: size concepts (mail a big envelope, mail a small envelope)
· for older children: literacy/writing skills and following directions (while writing a letter to “mail”)
10. Tracing on the box. You can trace items (or people!) onto the box for a fun activity that targets many different language skills. Refer to the barrier game suggestion (#6) for ideas about how you can make this into a learning activity, because many of those language concepts can work in this activity. If the box is big enough to trace your child, you could work on body part vocabulary, body function concepts (e.g. “this is something you see with”), clothing vocabulary, size, shape, color…the list goes on!
I hope these ideas have gotten your creative wheels spinning. If you try any of these out, I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to comment below.
