For kids, Valentine’s Day is about sending love to family and friends – sometimes through the mail. Last year, my kids were very interested in the concept of mailing valentines. So, I used two cardboard boxes, some hot glue and red paint to make a mailbox for them. A pretty simple project that has received a lot of love from my kids.
If you’re interested in how it was made, here’s a link to the instructions I slightly adapted. I recommend reinforcing the floor, because if the box is big enough – your kids will climb inside.
I brought out the mailbox again this year and it has proved just as popular. Next to the mailbox I set out some of our favourite play letters and envelopes. The kids have so much fun mailing valentines and using the tins to create “packages”. The felt envelopes (from Sewing Seeds Play) have a felt letter inside and the kids enjoy putting all kinds of treasures in the envelope. The wood letters are from Eye Spy Club and make a very satisfying “plop” when put through the mail slot. The acrylic letters and velcro stamps are new to us this year (from Stars and Sensory). You can write with a dry erase marker on the acrylic and stick on the stamps and tokens with velcro. So fun! I also put out some paper, cards, envelopes and a pencil so they can create and write their own valentines.
Besides a traditional mailbox, the box has also been a bridge, a house and a moving truck. I love how creative kids are with cardboard boxes. The possibilities are endless. What are some of your kids’ favourite uses for cardboard boxes?
Have you ever played with Cloud Dough? It has a really fun texture. It can hold together like a dough when compressed, but then will crumble again easily under too much pressure. Cloud dough is one of my kids very favourite textures to play with and they love to pretend bake with it. It’s also very easy to make with ingredients you probably have in your cupboard.
Cloud Dough Recipe
8 cups flour
1 cup oil
Mix 2 ingredients together. That’s it!
The Activity
For the activity, I prepared a few quick recipe cards for “Valentine’s Day Cupcakes” and set the Cloud Dough out with some measuring cups, scoops, cupcake liners, and other small containers.
I included a bowl of pastel, mini styrofoam balls for the “frosting” (from AliExpress), some polymer clay slices for “sprinkles” (also from AliExpress) and some resin candies, chocolates and mini cupcakes (Stars and Sensory, The Creative Mix Shop, and Dollarama).
I also added some wood heart stamps that were a quick DIY. To make them I stacked 2 wooden hearts (from Dollarama) and hot glued them on a wood block.
I put all the materials out on our IKEA Flisat table with a plasticized table cloth underneath to attempt to catch some of the mess.
My Thoughts
Fun– High
My kids love Cloud Dough. They will request I bring it out if we haven’t played with it in a while. They also loved the added texture of the styrofoam balls. My 3 year old son was very content scooping material and adding decorations, while my 5 year old loved following the recipes and then inventing her own creations.
Engagement Time– 1 hr
My kids were very engaged in this activity so they played uninterrupted and mostly independently for over an hour.
Cost– Low
The cost to recreate this activity is low. The ingredients for Cloud Dough are inexpensive and may already be in your cupboard. I used some resin candies and chocolate from small shops that I already had, but you could easily just use the pink and red hearts from Dollarama as add-ins. The styrofoam balls are also inexpensive. I found them to be the best price on AliEpress, but you could also find them on Amazon (they are sometimes called “slime add-ins”).
Effort– High
For me, this is the only draw-back of this activity. It is messy – one of the messiest we do. For me, this means I only bring out Cloud Dough on weekends or days when I have lots of time to clean up afterward. Even though the table cloth on the ground does catch some mess, I ended up having to vacuum when the activity was done. The kids also needed to change clothes when they were done.
Is it worth doing? Yes! I think so. The kids love it and it’s inexpensive to make. Plus Cloud Dough keeps well for years. I’ve had mine for at least 2 years now.
It also has lots of learning benefits.
It’s a great activity for working on early math skills – number recognition, measurement, and an introduction to fractions;
Scooping the dough, frosting and sprinkles promotes hand-eye coordination; and
Measuring the materials and filling (and overfilling) the muffin cups is a great activity for the containment schema (when your child is learning about spacial awareness and how much of something fits inside a container).
