Making It Up

Get in Touch

Imaginative outdoor play – the nowhere box (again)

—

by

Jax Blunt
in

The smaller children have discovered animal crossing and the Wii. I’m sure they are getting a lot out of this. Particularly in that they play with Small, which is lovely to see.

However, the weather is improving, and they all love being outdoors. None of us are good with long dark days, and the return of brighter days is doing good things for us all. (Except for in the mornings. Bright cheerful 3 year old early in the morning “It’s morning time! Wake up Mummy!”) Today I tempted them from the consoles with the help of their very own Nowhere Box.

image

Yes, one large cardboard box and a sunny garden. Well, OK, two large cardboard boxes when we had a sharing failure. (Gotta love 3 year olds. Repeat after me. 3 year olds are lovable. Loud, but lovable.)

They drew buttons in their boxes, climbed in and time travelled. Our garden was a swamp, dinosaurs ruled. Noisily 😉 There was running, bouncing, playing and it was good.

During dinner, we were talking about the day. Smallest told Tim quite calmly that the boxes didn’t work, so they had to use their imagination instead, and that was OK.

Turns out you gotta love 5 year olds too. 😉

(This post was inspired by The Nowhere Box.(Amazon link.) Which is doing good things for our family’s imagination.)

Linked up to country kids.

Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

Comments

12 responses to “Imaginative outdoor play – the nowhere box (again)”

  1. Michelle avatar
    Michelle

    Boxes are the best fun. Not always easy to get big ones. I remember we were so disappointed that our washing machine and tumble dryer arrived with just too and bottom polystyrene and then shrink wrapped. A month or so later we had a new dishwasher and it came in a box :-). C had it for years and years. Hours of happy children.

    Reply
    1. Jax Blunt avatar
      Jax Blunt

      We seem to have had a run of very large ones, children have been very lucky!

      Reply
  2. Helena avatar
    Helena

    I get the nappies delivered every month and they come in a huge box. That box becomes a train or a car or a spaceship or a just about anything!! Lots of fun.

    Reply
    1. Jax Blunt avatar
      Jax Blunt

      Brilliant, a box is just the best isn’t it?

      Reply
  3. Paula avatar
    Paula

    When my kids were as small as yours are now, the only computer in our house was a Xerox 820 with a C/PM system and 8 inch floppy disk drives. Boxes, however, were greatly beloved, even when the weather was bad and they had to use their imaginations in the basement playroom. We had one from a new washing machine or dishwasher when my son was perhaps three, and I cut windows and a door in it with an eXacto knife. Unfortunately he was so excited by the new opportunity being crafted before him that he pushed his way in through the door before I had completely extracted the eXacto knife. It was a slight scalp wound, but it bled like crazy. Ten years later when crew cuts became fashionable again we rediscovered the scar.

    Reply
    1. Jax Blunt avatar
      Jax Blunt

      Eek! Imaginative play often creates lifetime memories but not usually in quite that way.

      Reply
  4. Coombe Mill avatar
    Coombe Mill

    Imaginative play is so underrated, I love how your children were inspired to draw and create in there. Now I want to find out more about the Nowhere box! Thank you for sharing on Country Kids

    Reply
    1. Jax Blunt avatar
      Jax Blunt

      It’s a gorgeous book – it inspired me to try drawing picture book style.

      Reply
  5. Merlinda Little ( @pixiedusk) avatar
    Merlinda Little ( @pixiedusk)

    I think one of the things that my son loves about Ikea is the boxes that he gets after we assembled anything that we got from the store. The imagination that these boxes inspires our kids to do is just amazing and awesome =) #countrykids

    Reply
    1. Jax Blunt avatar
      Jax Blunt

      Oh, the boxes are definitely the best bit about furniture! And I love watching how they change from one thing to another.

      Reply
  6. Let kids be kids avatar
    Let kids be kids

    You can’t beat a bit of outdoor imaginary play. There’s something wonderful about a large cardboard box isn’t there

    Reply
  7. Sara (@mumturnedmom) avatar
    Sara (@mumturnedmom)

    Absolutely love this. For a while my boys slept in boxes that they had made into houses 🙂 ultimate indoor camping! It’s amazing how such a simple thing feeds the imagination x

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *