Tag

recycle

Cardboard Lemonade Stand

Don't toss your old cardboard boxes. Upcycle them into fun.Cardboard box lemonade stand for the kids

You have always heard that if you give your kids a new toy, that they all they are going to want is the box. It is true. Children love to play with boxes & the bigger the better. I am a big online shopper & just purchased a new floor lamp for our living room. It was packed in a box within a box within another box. The outer box was a huge one. My daughter was excited to jump into each & every one of them  & I was excited because I knew right away what I was going to do with the large one.

My daughter has been asking me all winter long if she could have a lemonade stand. We set up a table in her playroom a few times & hung a sign, but I promised her that once the nice weather hit, we would build her a special stand for outside. The nice weather definitely has not hit yet, but I could not pass up the opportunity to build her a stand.

The box was a long one with the flaps on the both sides on the long ends. I opened both ends.

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I cut a slit in the cardboard about 1/3 of the way down on both sides. On the side that would be my front, I kept the top & bottom side flaps. On the backside, I cut off the top side flaps. Also on the back, I cut the top & bottom flaps. I cut them carefully, as one of those flaps was going to be my counter & I wanted it in good shape.

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For the front section, I had to tape the bottom side flaps together & then tape them to the bottom of the box. I removed the front bottom flap as well, but left the top for the awning.

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Here is a view of what the box looked like from behind.

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I cut the top side flap in half like shown below & then cut more off of the top portion so that I could lower the top flap down & to form a slant for the awning. I glued the awning in place.

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I used one of the removed top/bottom flaps to form my counter & then glued it in place at the top of the taped front portion. I cut narrow pieces of cardboard width wise from another previously removed flap to form braces for the counter.

I bent the narrow pieces on both ends.

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Then glued all 4 braces in place using a glue gun to hold the counter underneath.

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Once the body of the stand was assembled, the fun began.

I cut pieces of construction paper to form the awning.

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I painted the counter & windows & then used decorative masking tape in several placed to add just a bit more color.

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When my daughter woke in the morning, her face lit right up. She could not wait to start selling lemonade to mommy & daddy.

The lemonade stand is open for business.

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Don't toss your old cardboard boxes. Upcycle them into fun.Cardboard box lemonade stand for the kids

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Tissue Box Wheelbarrow Craft

Working Wheelbarrow made out of a tissue box. Cute fall crafts for kids.

We have been doing a lot of work on our house the last few weeks to prepare it to go on the market. We finally finished our cellar, repainted our living room ceiling & did some much-needed gardening. Mai has been helping mama a lot & it turns out that she really likes gardening.

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With all of the weeding & pruning that we had to do, the wheelbarrow was my new best friend. Mai, of course, wanted to push it around, but it was a bit to big, heavy & clumsy for my little girl to maneuver. It did give me an idea for a wheelbarrow craft with a functioning wheel though.

Tissue Box Wheelbarrow

Things you will need:

Tissue Box

Paint

Craft stick

Large button

Toothpick

Sticks or dowels

Buttons

Directions:

Cut the top of the tissue box off & cut off most of one side leaving a slight lip.

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Paint the box & 6 craft sticks.

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Glue two parallel sticks underneath the box on the cut end as shown. The open side should be at the top. Glue two more sticks onto the other end so that they slant towards one another as shown.

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Stick a toothpick through  a hole in the large button. Place the button in between the two slanted craft sticks & glue the toothpick in place to secure.

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Glue two more crafts sticks underneath the parallel sticks. Glue 3 dowels or wooden sticks together to form a brace for your wheel barrow & glue it between the two craft sticks.. (I glued a button on either end of the brace for more glue surface & stability.)

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I painted a tree trunk & added button leaves to dress up our wheelbarrow a bit. You may decorate yours however you choose.

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Mai had a lot of fun wheeling it around. We filled it with leaves from outside & she had a little indoor gardening fun with it.

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Tissue Box Wheelbarrow Craft - working wheelbarrow. cute fall craft

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Puzzle Pieces For Teaching Sight Words

Puzzle Piece Sight Words

 

One of our favorite learning tools in our home has always been puzzles. Picture puzzles of course are fabulous for teaching them problem solving & matching up their shapes & colors, but many puzzles have an extra layer of learning to them. Puzzles have taught our daughter her US. States, a good portion of her countries & all of her planets.

We have puzzles everywhere, board puzzles, jig saw puzzles & large floor puzzles that clutter up our whole house.

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The benefits have outweighed the mess.

We have been working on sight words & writing lately. Mai recognizes & can write & spell her name now. We have been trying to work on the other basics as well.

We used a blank puzzle that we have had lying around for a long time. You can purchase a blank puzzle for about a dollar at a craft store or you can just flip over your old puzzle & work on the back or paint over the front & let dry before adding in your sight words. As with most families of a small child, I am sure that you have several puzzles that are missing pieces.

Puzzle Piece Sight Words

Write out your sight word using magic markers or paint. Make a design across the pieces that you will be using to have a color & shape reference to join them back together. Make a small picture scribble of your sight word on the connecting pieces to help them understand what the word is. Mai knew right away that this was supposed to be her mama.

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“Who is that Mai?”

“It’s Mama.”

“How do you spell mom?”

“M. O. M.”

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We made an assortment of different words. We put each together & spelled them together. We also found another fun craft project with our extra puzzle pieces in the process. Stay tuned for our cute puzzle piece craft.

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Puzzle piece sight words - this would be  agreat way to use recycled puzzles

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Related Posts:

http://dabblingmomma.blogspot.com/2015/02/dr-seuss-cvc-words.html

http://tinytotsadventure.com/2015/03/20-name-activities-and-crafts-for-toddlers-and-preschoolers/