Materials
Large piece of cardboard and assorted boxes (cereal, crackers)
Scissors, tape and glue
Paint and brushes
Pie tin
Marker piece from old game, small plastic animals, wagons, and so on
Fabric scraps
Instructions
1. Rinse milk cartons thoroughly after use. Cut off the triangular tops along thefold lines to form rectangles. Sort the cartons into pairs of the same size. (Youwill need two cartons of the same size for each block.)2. Stuff one carton of each pair with shredded paper or crumpled newspaper.Fill it adequately, but not so much that the sides bulge. Pinch the sides of thestuffed carton so that the upper edges will fit inside its empty mate (turnedupside down).3. Carefully slide the empty carton completely over the other. The waxy surfacesallow this to happen as long as you let trapped air escape as you push thetwo pieces together. As a result, you should have a perfectly formed solidrectangle.4. Decorate each block with one piece of contact paper, covering the fourprinted sides and leaving the white ends plain (this leaves less paper edgesthat might come loose).5. Add the new blocks to the Construction Zone. They are lightweight, and virtuallyaccident-proof, enabling children to build head-high structures withoutendangering their safety.More to doMath: Use solid colored self-adhesive paper in basic colors to enable children tosort and stack the blocks by color.More Math: Cover the blocks in one solid color, and then cut out basic shapesfrom a contrasting color. Apply the shapes to the sides of the blocks for shaperelatedactivities.
