DIY Cardboard Learning Play Mat

We love finding ways to make play cities over here.  We have a few other play city creations around here too.  A cardboard tray, a chalkboard city, paper city... and now a cardboard learning play mat.

What I used:

cardboard box, sharpies, and toys.

What I did:

We got the kids a new table and what was the most exciting thing about it for mommy but the box!  I had a few ideas for it and once I started this is what I ended up with, a learning play mat.  I started out knowing I would draw a road and the rest just came as I drew.  

I added an upper case and lower case highway to each side of the mat.  I wrote the alphabet down the sides.  He thinks this is so cool. Each time he drive on one side or the other he asked "ok mommy what case highway is this now".  We take time to go over the different "big" and "little" letters while playing.

There is a number bridge that helps him count to 20.  We count as we drive over it.  He is also getting a chance to see the written numbers as well.   I added a rainbow lake.  I made multi color fish in the water. This is a great way to help little brother recognize his colors.  Last, I added the parking lot.  Almost all things I make for my boys has to have a "parking lot"!  So I thought why not add just one more way to learn by making it a sight word parking lot.  Now we have a great learning mat made out of a piece of cardboard box! 

As always we hope you and your kids can have some fun and learn with this idea too.

Please do come and visit us again. We would love to have you back.

All kids are different and only you can decide how you let your kids play. And with what materials you let them play with. My children are supervised when playing. Please keep this in mind with any post you read of mine!

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