Screen-Free City-Building Activity

Our children have no shortage of ways to play in the digital world. But what happens when mom turns off the screens?

When the screens go dark in my home, I find the kids still crave the building and creating aspects of onscreen games like Minecraft. The power to build their own cities and worlds as they please is highly satisfying. And rightly so. So today, I let my two littlest ones, ages 10 and 8, plan a create their own little cities, right at the kitchen table.

They glued, painted, marked and taped until the sun went down. It kept them just as busy, and just as engaged as an afternoon with an iPad in their laps.

What You'll Need

• carboard boxes
• wooden cubes
• paint
• markers
• glitter
• wood glue
• white glue
• glue stick
• cotton balls 
• toothpicks
• coloured paper

How It's Made

They each started out with a shallow cardboard box each and their pick at the supplies. Within a couple of hours, they had created the cutest little tiny cities, complete with clouds, road signs and cars.

They both chose to paint the inside walls of their boxes blue for the sky. One painted the floor of the box green, the other used green paper and cut it to fit on bottom. Roads were planned and painted...

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Buildings were created by adding a small amount of wood glue to the tiny wooden cubes and stacking them as they pleased. The buildings were then painted and windows made with permanent markers or craft paint.

Once the buildings and roads were in place, water fountains, hospitals, ponds, power stations and — funny enough — wifi towers were installed in their little cities. They used cotton balls to created clouds, and glitter for power stations and water reflections, and they painted the outside of the box to pretty it up even more.

Their cities were built and they were beautiful. I had challenged them to build so that the whole box could be turned upside down upon completion and nothing would fall out. They both succeeded in this challenge and were quite proud of themselves. If you're making these at home, the fun isn't over when the building is! You can extend the play activity by adding little micro cars to the box for your child to drive around in their new little city any time they want!