Try these 5 fun ideas to DIY cardboard into cardboard toys and building materials for kids. These are great recycled projects for the whole family!
Here at The Artful Parent, we are big fans of recycled art projects for kids. Art is an important avenue through which we can teach kids of ways to reduce waste and reuse materials in totally new ways. And cardboard is a great place to start! Not only is it a sturdy canvas for lots of drawing and collage projects, it also is a great building material.
We are featuring five of our favorite building and construction toys that you can make yourself with cardboard. And the best part of course is this material is totally free and you likely have some in your recycling bin right now.
So grab a cardboard box and choose one of the following projects to do with your kids!
5 Easy DIY Cardboard Toys You Can Make Yourself
1. Make Your Own Cardboard Building Discs
Create these amazing open-ended sculptures with DIY cardboard building discs!
You can build as big as you like with this first set, if you make enough building discs! I think these would be fun to try in different sizes, too.
2. How to Make a 3D Rainbow Sculpture
These three-dimensional rainbow sculptures are the best! For these rainbow cardboard sculptures just slot the shapes together loosely (inspiration from Eames’ House of cards). It’s the sort of connecting technique that can be used to make many different sculptures.
You can build an awesome 3D rainbow with cardboard, or this project could work well for making cool animals, too…
3. DIY Magnetic Building Set
Explore magnetic properties and building with different shapes!
Use cardboard to make your own magnetic building set to use and reuse for construction and education!
4. DIY Cardboard Castle
Build your own castle, complete with drawbridge and moat!
Construct your own cardboard castle, either from your imagination or recreate from history for an educational spin.
5. Make a Cardboard Dollhouse with Real Lights!
This lighted cardboard dollhouse is extra fun to make and play with. Create a few for a little city!
We hope this gives you some fun ideas for building and learning with cardboard! We’d love to see what you’ve made. Tag us on Instagram #theartfulparent.
More DIY Cardboard Building Ideas
- How to Make Cardboard Robot Puppets (+ Reuse Recycled Materials!)
- Build a Gigantic Rocket out of Recycled Cardboard Boxes!
- How to Make Cardboard Masks for Kids
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