Tuesday Teaching Tips: Encourage Creative Play By Using A Magic Box

Last week I shared with you my article, 3 Creative Play Activities Using Colourful Fabrics, as a way to get started with some play ideas. I’ve found another great creative play idea that I also wanted to share with you.

The Creative Play Box is an idea that I have seen in some form or another on Pinterest and various blogs. I have also found a video on You Tube (watch below) that named the box a Magic Play Box.

I really liked this idea and thought it would be a great item for a parent to have or for a teacher to have in the classroom. The Magic Play Box holds creative items that children can explore; such as through creative dramatic play or art and craft.

In the video you will notice that some of the items in the box include: crayons, large sheets of paper, play doh, fabric, pipe cleaners, paint and sparkles.

Before showing you the video I also wanted to share with you how my Little Miss Two and I created our own Magic Play Box and show you what we included in our box.

How To Create Your Own Magic Play Box

1. You will need to find a box that you can use to store all the creative items. I had a plain cardboard box. So we also grabbed some wrapping paper, scissors, tape and stickers to cover the box.

2. My Little Miss Two helped cover the box and then we wrote a title for the box and covered the lid with stickers.

3. Next we collected lots of different items that I thought would be good to encourage creativity. The items included in our box are: coloured paper, textas, scissors, scrapbooking stamps, stickers, jewellery, cape, apron, gift bag, feather scarf, fabric, stamping paints and bubble wrap.

4. My Little Miss Two played with the items in the box for about an hour (that’s a very long time for her) and she had lots of fun with the stamping paints, jewellery and feather scarf.

I plan to keep this box as a special treat for Little Miss Two. I don’t want it to become something that’s an everyday item that she will lose interest in. This is something that is also easy to take with us somewhere if I know there will not be items available for a toddler.

In the classroom you could use the Magic Play Box as part of your reward system, where students use the box individually or in small groups. If you have a particular theme you are using during the term, then you could have the items in your box match the theme. Then you could change the items in the box when you change your theme so your students maintain interest in the box.

Watch the video below to get some more ideas about what you can put in your Magic Play Box. Have you used something similar before, if so I’d love to hear about it? Use the comments below to share your creative play ideas.

Can’t see the video watch it here.

You can find all archived Tuesday Teaching Tips videos here.