With the thrill of March, or more so the thrill of the good-bye to February, we have been getting rather creative. We do love to create and explore on any day of the week, but lately we have been getting even more out of the box with our ideas … case and point – this yarn bombed chair turned doll house …
Anyways, my little ones have also been letting loose and getting extra creative as well. Yesterday Sammy created this very neat 3D town, which I found so clever I wanted to share it with you!
It is great for developing visual spatial skills, problem solving , cutting, and fine motor skills too.
Sam began by wanting to make a map. We have done some mapping before – in fact I wrote about how I introduce mapping to my little ones in this post, rightfully named, “An easy Introduction to Mapping for Kids“.
He decided it was going to be a very, very big map. When I offered him a piece of poster board his eyes glowed … now that he knows paper THAT big exists, there is no turning back.
He drew some curvy roads and lines all over his map. Then he decided to turn this map into a town.
I had assumed he would just draw some houses and buildings onto the map – but he had another idea. Which looks super cool.
He took different pieces of paper and drew houses, skyscrapers, a fire hall, the mayors house 🙂 All the basics. really.
He cut them out leaving a strip at the bottom that he could fold down to tape onto the map, making the buildings stand tall.
His creativity ran wild with this. Sam decided he was going to make a Doctor’s office. But not just any Doctor’s office – a Doctor that specializes in feet. So, clearly, the sock came off and the foot was traced … voila! A podiatrist’s office building shaped like a foot.
Once the buildings were all drawn he taped them down to his map. He placed the skyscrapers and office buildings in the middle of the map where the roads are quite close together and busy. He placed the houses on the quieter streets.
Since the foot doctor’s office was so tall, it wouldn’t stand straight. I wanted to suggest he put a popsicle stick behind it, but I didn’t. Sam decided to bend it around the road and turn it into a tunnel. Developing those problem solving skills thanks to Mama keeping quiet!
Once he was happy with is town he made a few little people and then got out some cars to go all around the town.
It was neat to discover that he could run the buildings and houses right over and, for the most part, they would pop back up. This worked for quite awhile – until we needed to add a little tape to the other side of the buildings.
This neat map/town creation has been his pride and joy for the last few days. He proudly displays it to anyone who comes for a visit. And was just as proud as could be to know that it was going to be shown to all of you!
Maybe you have a little architect who would enjoy giving this a try?
I LOVE tbis! Creating like this on his own is fantastic!
Thank you Susen! I will be sure to pass along how fantastic you think it is to my Sam. He will smile ear to ear!