Introduction: Cardboard Stackers

Beside my day care mom job I work part time as a  babysitter. The two kids I care are 4 and 6  year old. Here is a lovely project done by them under my supervision.

Our  answers to  Make-To-Learn youth  Contest:

What did you make?
 We made colorful cardboard stackers  using recycled cardboard.We used very few tools like cardboard, paper scissors,pencil,ruler craft/water colors, paint brush,and duct tape.It was really fun and creative to do this.

How did you make it?
We got this idea from our babysitter who helped us to make  this colorful stackers. At first our babysitter helped us by showing some cardboard pieces as how  to measure,draw lines,cut and paste.
We measured and  cut the cardboard in to 4x2 inches,painted them with craft and water colors, as well as sticked duct tape on to them and then,cut  six slits to fix the cardboard pieces to gether.

Where did you make it?
We made this at our home  over the weekend with our babysitter when my parents were away.We used the living room table and the kitchen table.

What did you learn?
We think that by making this creative project we learned to create some thing with the thrash,and I am proud to say that I  learned  to measure using a measuring tape and my brother really did a wonderful job by learning to cut a corrugated cardboard straight.
Our parents and our class teacher  were very happy and proud that now I know  what an inch tape is and how to measure and as for my little brother who learnt to hold the scissors straight and cut on a straight  line.

We also realized that we can make our own play stuffs with out spending money to buy from the stores.
If we want to do this again with our classs friends  we  will do it with different shapes like traingles, squares, and round shapes and learn to measure in centimeters.Our teacher has already promised to help us to do this in class  after summer holidays.
The most challenging part is to build the stackers with our own ideas ,the more pieces we have we can build as tall as Eiffel tower.This is a great learning process for us and thank our babysitter for showing us this wonderful project which we enjoyed making and building.

Step 1: Supplies

Corrugated cardboard
Measuring tape
Scissors
Pencil
Eraser
Duct tape
Water colours
Craft paint
Paint brush -not in picture
Ruler -not in picture

Step 2: Measure & Draw

I measured (my little brother is too small to do this) 4"x 2" boxes on the cardboard and drew the lines using the ruler. Then marked 1" away from all four corners to have the cut to insert  two  cardboards pieces  together..Refer pictures to understand better.

Step 3: Cut! Cut! Cut!

Now we  cut the cardboard pieces carefully in to pieces.My brother made so many mistakes while cutting and  had to measure extra pieces.Our hands were paining so we stopped with 56 pieces. The more cardboard stackers  we have,  we can make a huge monster structure.

Step 4: Paint

Since we did not have duct tape in all colors , we decided to paint the cardboard pieces.My little brother was sick ,so I did all the colouring on the cardboard.Within a couple of minutes it dried.

Step 5: Duct Tape

We had only grey and black duct tape.So we pasted 7 cards each on these two colored duct tapes.I got help from my baby sitter to do this pasting.

Step 6: Colors

There are 56 pieces of cardboard stackers.Oh! they look really colourful.Seven pieces are not colored.

Step 7: Build

Look! how we start creating different structures ! This is very interesting and our brain works alot to think as how to build.

Step 8: Create Ideas

Step 9:

Step 10: