HOW TO MAKE A CITY OUT OF RECYCLED MATERIALS FOR KIDS

How to Make a Recycled Rainbow Town with Kids. Guest Post by Rodgrigo Macias from Box of Ideas.

Have fun recycling cardboard and printing paper to make a Rainbow Town with your kids for them and their friends to play with. Watch the video above to see Rainbow Town come to life!

* The people in the Rainbow Town’s video are based on characters from the children’s book My Color is Rainbow *

GET ALL THE FREE PRINTABLE FOR RAINBOW TOWN: Head over Box of ideas to download the printables used in this video (doors, windows and welcome sign).

HOW TO MAKE THE BUILDINGS:

Materials:

– The doors and windows printable (download link here). If you don’t want to use the printable you can use a black marker to draw the doors and windows.

– Empty boxes (I used juice boxes because they look like they have a roof but any recycled boxes would do).

– Colored paper

– Glue/tape, scissors and anything to add color (paint, crayons, markers, etc.)

Instructions:

Step 1: Paint the top of the boxes or cover them with paper to make the roof.

Step 2: Wrap the box with colored paper.

Step 3: Color-in, cut out and paste the windows and doors you want for your building (the printable comes with different styles).

Step 4: Use your creativity and whatever resources you have available to add any extra details to make your building more unique (for example, if you have pom-poms you can use them as flowers outside of your flower shop, or as fruit outside of your mini-market).

HOW TO MAKE THE HOMES:

Materials:

– Cardboard tubes (toilet roll for smaller middle class homes or kitchen rolls for apartment buildings / tower homes / wealthier townies homes).

– Printing paper that has already been used on one side.

– Colored paper

– Glue/tape, scissors and anything to add color (paint, crayons, markers, etc.)

Instructions:

Step 1: Wrap the tube with the printing paper and fold in or cut any extras.

Step 2: Use your fingers to push-in the top of your tube and make it pointy.

Step 3: Color-in, cut out and paste the windows and door you want for the house.

Step 4: (optional) Watch the video at the beginning of this post to see how to make your doors “openable”.

Step 5: For the roof, cut a rectangle of colored paper, tape it to the top of your pointy tube and shape it with your hands.

HOW TO MAKE THE TOWNIES (PEOPLE):

Materials:

– Clear packaging material of any kind

– Black marker

– Small piece of thick cardboard

– Exacto knife (if you don’t want to use anything sharp, you can use any kind of thick glue instead)

– Paint/markers and scissors.

Instructions:

Step 1: Cut out a piece of the clear packaging stuff (make sure to cut-round any pointy corners).

Step 2: Use a marker to draw the outline of the townie and let it dry.

Step 3: Use paint or markers to add color to the back side of the drawing. That way it doesn’t matter if the color is outside of the lines, it still looks cool!

Step 4: Cut a line in the middle of the piece of cardboard of the same length as the character’s piece. Insert the piece in the slit and add glue if you want extra grit.

* The people in the Rainbow Town’s video are based on characters from the book My Color is Rainbow *

How to make the town’s backdrop and pavement: (This is optional but it makes great photos!)

Materials:

– A big piece of cardboard

– Paint

– Construction paper of different colors

Instructions:

Step 1: Bend the cardboard in half (or tape together two big pieces).

Step 2: Paint the sky using blue and some white for clouds.

Step 3: Paint the pavement gray. After it dries you can add random squares of color and use a black crayon to draw the pavement’s lines.

Step 4. For the rainbow: cut out one circle of each color of the Rainbow (they all can be of the same size), then glue them in the right order, one on top of the other, stacking them in a way that a bit of each color can be seen after all of them are stacked. Then cut out an arc shape.

For the hills: cut out a few different sized pieces of green paper and tape/glue them to the sky (over the rainbow). Then sing that song that just came to your head.

Extra details:

I used a piece of green foam board for the grassy area, but you can paint that or use any colored paper/fabric.

For the stairs I painted clear and darker stripes on long pieces of cardboard.

The river was made with tissue paper and pebbles.

The entrance’s bridge was made by cutting and painting a tiny cardboard box.

Adapt this activity for a School’s Group Project or Kid’s Party Game:

Depending on the amount of time you need for the activity, have the kids make one or more buildings of their choice so they all contribute to make one big recycled town or city (or Avenue! if the group is tiny).

If you want to go the extra mile, have each kid take a specific role in the town and either provided by you or by their parents (or let them make their own), have them wear costumes / props accordingly so they can wear them while they craft their building and during after-play. A paper hat or inexpensive prop that lets them feel like their character would be enough to make them feel like the Chef or Policewoman they choose to become. Their imagination will take over 🙂

GET THE PRINTABLE: Head over Box of ideas to download the printables used in this video (doors, windows and welcome sign).

Happy crafting!

Rodrigo Macias is the founder of Box of Ideas, a blog full of imaginative and educational ideas for modern preschool teachers. Follow Box of Ideas on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.

Check out 40+ more Brilliant Rainbow Crafts for Kids, More fun Recycled Projects and TONS more creative ideas for kids.

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