Junk modelling

This is great for helping children understand shapes, textures and different materials. It will also help the child to exercise their creativity, inventiveness and problem solving.

You will need:

Empty egg boxes, shoe-boxes, cereal boxes, cardboard rolls, anything not too big (it’s likely to be part of your home for a while but if you have the space, by all means let your children create the next Titanic!).

It’s easier to decorate cardboard than plastic, but there’s no reason you can’t have clean plastic bottles and yoghurt pots too.

Then some PVA glue, lots of rolls of sticky tape, old magazines, paints, foil, old bottle tops, dried pasta, scraps of materials… anything goes as long as it’s safe.

What to do:

The key here is to let the children take the initiative.

Clear a space so that nothing you want to keep is going to get incorporated into the design. Protect any delicate surfaces with old newspapers (you can stick the edges to the undersides of the table.)
Lay out all the materials and the means to stick them together.
Put aprons or old shirts on the children and tie their hair back if needs be.
Then sit back and be amazed by what they are creating. With junk modelling, there are no rules as long as it’s safe.