We've been having a 'staycation' for February break and have been spending lots of time engaged in creative play. Our big project for the week has been creating this cardboard box city to play with.
We got this City Blocks set from VillaCarton and it's an ingenious idea combining kids' love for cardboard boxes with imaginary play and creativity. It comes flat with the city buildings printed on all sides in black and white - you simply fold the boxes together and then let the kids colour and decorate them the way they like! Once completed, it makes a fun city playscape for imaginary play!
We've been colouring parts with markers, painting parts, and adding our own touches such as flowers and cats on windowsills and nests on the roof tiles. We've been working on it bit by bit all week and it still isn't quite finished. (But that hasn't stopped the kids from playing with it already!) We still plan to add some stickers (maybe a dog walking down the sidewalk or a teddy bear in a fire truck?), and perhaps some touches of 'sparkle' with some glitter paint. We are also having a debate as to whether or not to cut open some of the windows or doors with an exacto knife - one pea says yes, the other says no ;-)
The set we got is a fire station on one side and a hospital on the other, but there are all sorts of brilliantly creative cardboard box toys available from VillaCarton, including a play kitchen, play houses and even costumes.
My kids (and admittedly I - who doesn't love colouring, right?) have been absolutely loving this! We love that we have a 'framework' for our creation already set up, but can still enjoy using our own creativity to decorate it the way we like. It creates an exciting small world scene for fostering some wonderful imaginary play. It will fold flat one day when we decide to put it away (hasn't happened yet as it's getting daily use!) And we even made our own shop out of the box it came in ;-) Highly recommend!
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*Please note that while we received this cardboard city block set from VillaCarton to test out in exchange for writing this review, the opinions expressed here are 100% ours.
*Thanks to Petra of Bag of Pretty for turning me on to VillaCarton in the first place :-)