Homemade Blocks

Creating and building your own blocks at home is an easy solution to actually purchasing your own.  When making your own at home, you can choose what size you would like to make and you can also choose what you want them to look like.  Through homemade blocks, children learn about and develop:

• Cause and effect
• Spatial skills
• Sizes and weights of boxes 
• Eye-hand coordination

To make homemade blocks, you will need:

• Small boxes of various sizes - cereal, soap, snack
• Grocery paper sacks or wrapping paper
• Packaging tape (if you want them to last for a longer period of time)

First, stuff each box with paper to make it as firm as you want.  If you want the box to last longer, stuff it as full as you can.  Next, tape it shut on the ends and wrap it, as you would a gift, with either the grocery paper sacks or gift wrap.  The picture above is of boxes that were wrapped in white paper, but painted after to make it more colorful.  Once the box is wrapped, then continuously wrap packaging tape around the box until it is completely covered.  If the box is completely covered with tape, this allows you to be able to clean and sanitize the boxes more often, as well as making your hard work pay off and last a longer period of time.  Once completely wrapped, your homemade blocks are complete!

Share your thoughts and ideas on how you have used your blocks!