Creative Kids: Wrapping Paper Canoe

Brina and Karlie’s wrapping paper canoe

After a recent celebration at our house we had leftover wrapping paper, tissue paper, and a couple boxes.  As I was cleaning up the girls asked if they could use the leftover items for a few days before we threw everything away.  After a few moments of hesitation I decided it wouldn’t hurt anything to let them play with the items and get creative. They were thrilled to have such large pieces of wrapping paper and goodies to create something super special.

Once they decided what they wanted to do they took the largest piece of wrapping paper they could find and made a wrapping paper “canoe” out of it.  The red tissue paper was used to create four rows of benches inside the canoe.  They used some of the cardboard to make oars for their boat.  I am not sure why they decided to make a canoe but they both worked together to come up with the idea and did well working together on it.  I let them keep out their wrapping paper canoe for several days.  I was pretty impressed with how they were able to put everything together all on their own and even made something that  resembled a paddle out of cardboard.

Even though my preference would be to clean up the wrapping paper, cardboard, and tissue paper right away after the celebration I allowed myself to let go and let the girls have fun with the items.  The items were trash but they had a blast creating, using the scissors and the glue to put together their wrapping paper canoe.  Yes, I could have thrown all the wrapping items away as soon as the celebration was over but I would have never had the joy of watching my kids entertain themselves for hours with their handcrafted wrapping paper canoe!  It is a great way to reuse the wrapping paper multiple times plus the kids have a blast too!

Cardboard paddle for their canoe