Would your children love a full-scale cardboard maze that they can crawl through? Would they enjoy creating a masterpiece they can design and crawl through? If your answer is yes, than building a cardboard maze is a perfect project for them to do. My husband is the master builder of cardboard mazes and he has shared with me the following information. I have chosen to share this with you so that your children can have an exceptionally fun project this summer.
The first thing you need to know about building a cardboard maze is it takes creativity. You will need lots and lots of refrigerator or moving boxes. I recommend stopping at your local appliance store with a truck and see what they can offer you. A furniture store might be able to furnish some boxes too. The other place to find boxes is to post a message on craiglist or freecycle and find out if someone has some moving boxes they can spare for you. The other component to using your creativity is to have a large area to work with. Some of the best areas include a large backyard or basement. Other tools to using your creativity to its fullest include: Christmas tree lights (for lighting the inside), blacklights and neon markers, crayons, markers, and scissors. You can design just about anything.
The second thing you need to know to build a cardboard maze is that you will need a lot of time. It takes times to make such a creative masterpiece. My husband spent about 20 hours creating each of the full blown cardboard mazes for the church. The kids loved going through the maze. He received many compliments on his cardboard maze project, but the project itself lost him a lot of sleep. Expect that creating a cardboard maze might take a lot of manpower and a day or two. Perhaps another family would like to join you in creating a maze.
The third thing you need to know in order to build a cardboard maze is that you need lots of duct tape. It will take a lot of duct tape to build a unique and fascinating structure. You can find inexpensive duct tape at the dollar store or Wal-mart. You may need to buy several rolls. There are no rules to where or how you duct tape the boxes together, so use your imagination and go crazy. You can have single tunnels or create three and four way intersections. My husband even built a cardboard maze over the top of a stage. The maze had a top and bottom level this way! You can also build ramps into the cardboard maze (when placed on top of a stronger stucture) or build windows into the maze. Take on the challenge to make your cardboard maze great!
My husband sums it up this way, “To build a cardboard maze, you will need creativity, time and a lot of duct tape!” So use your imagination! These are the tips we have to creating a full-size fantastic cardboard maze this summer! Good Luck & Have Fun!
