Guest Post: Recycled Cardboard Zoo

October 12th, 2011

Posted by: Kim

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Hi Creativity for

Kids fans! I’m Kim from seven thirty three – - – a creative blog and I am so excited to be back here sharing with you mine and my children’s fun experience with the Creativity for Kids Recycled Cardboard Zoo! First let me tell you, you get a lot of bang for your buck with this craft! With over 100 pieces, your animal fan is going to be in heaven! Lions, tigers and (polar) bears, oh my! This zoo has it all and your little ones are able to let their imaginations run wild in designing and filling it the way their little heart’s desire.

My very first tip to you is to NOT MISS THE ABOVE SECTION OF THE BOX! I know sometimes we get so excited to get a project started that we just rip into a box, but with this one you don’t want to do that. Creativity for Kids is all about recycling and upcycling and that includes their packaging! So this box doubles as a landscape for the zoo.

{Putting the aquarium together}

Now because there are a lot of pieces and a fair amount of assembly required I went ahead and opened the package and got everything put together PRIOR to sharing with my kids. My two younger ones (2 and 4) were going to be working on this project while my 11 year old was at soccer practice, so I felt this would work best. If you have older children, then by all means, let them help you assemble everything. I set aside some animals for my oldest to assemble and decorate so that she could join in the fun. When I was ready I called my kids to the kitchen table and this is what they saw:

They jumped up onto their chairs and started coloring like mad while I took a moment to make dinner (calzones, in case you were wondering)! Once dinner was in the oven we moved everything to the playroom and I helped my son add the habitat backgrounds to each section of the zoo. After that I even jumped in on the coloring fun and we had a good time creating

a bright and crazy zoo atmosphere. My kids are coloring addicts, so this project was perfect for them. AND it kept their attention and we had a fun time doing it. My son especially loved figuring out where everything should go – it was almost like a little puzzle for him, plus we learned about each animal’s surroundings in the process.

{Using the included glue stick to adhere the habitat backgrounds. I glued, my son stuck.}

We spent a half hour coloring and arranging our animals in their habitats before dinner was ready and we had to set it aside. After dinner they went right back to it and my 11 year old joined them. It is great to have an activity that a 2, 4 and 11 year old (and even a 29 year old) can enjoy and spend quality time together! There were so many pieces we didn’t even get to everything, but I set them aside in a bag so that the next time we pull this out we can add new elements to our expanding zoo!

Keep in mind this is all made of cardboard, so the kids will need to be gentle and treat it kindly to ensure it lasts. We placed ours in our playroom corner along with the rest of their little various towns. It is a great addition to their imaginative world! Last I checked they had grabbed out the Littlest Pet Shop toys and were introducing even MORE animals to their zoo!