200 Quick & easy experiments

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750+ Quick & easy craft ideas

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KiwiCo crate box

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Empty box? Boring. Your own tilt-to-play game? A-maze-ing. Design the straw path, add obstacles, and drop in a marble to play. Then, once you’re a maze-solving expert, just mix up the straws to design a brand-new level. Score!

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Take an empty KiwiCo box and cut off the top lid. Then cut the tabs off of the cover so you are left with the rectangular main lid. This rectangle will act as a platform in your crate. Trim the edges until the rectangle fits into your crate.

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With an adult's assistance, use a craft knife to cut two 1-inch x 1-inch squares out of the middle of the rectangular piece. Then cut off a small piece of the corner of the rectangle.

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On the side of the crate, have an adult cut a little trap door out of the cardboard.

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Take a piece of paper and use a pencil to trace your cardboard rectangle and the square holes. 

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Grab your marble and bouncy balls. Inside the square holes on your paper, use a pencil to draw a circle that is bigger than your marble, but smaller than your bouncy balls.

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Place your paper on the cardboard and cut out the border, so your paper lines up with the cardboard. Cut out the holes (not the squares) from the paper as well. Make sure both pieces line up and use double-stick tape to attach the paper to the cardboard. This will be your game board base. We suggest writing START in the top left corner, and in the bottom right corner, writing FINISH. 

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Cut your straws into different-sized pieces and start arranging them to create a path from the start to finish. As you design, work the holes into your maze, so the holes become obstacles in the maze path. When you're happy with the arrangement, tape or glue the straws in place.

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Now take your paper towel tube and cut 2 half-inch wide rings from the end of the tube.

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Glue these to the bottom of the crate box, making sure that when your game board piece is placed inside, the rings don't align with the holes. Glue your game board piece down to the rings.

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When all your glue is dry, you're ready to play! Try placing a bouncy ball at the START and tilting your box to roll it to the FINISH! If you want more of a challenge, use your marble and tilt your box to roll it from the START to the FINISH. You'll need to avoid the holes or your marble will fall through. If your marble falls through, use the trapdoor you cut in the box side to get the marble out. If you want to try a different game, use two bouncy balls and try to get them stuck in both holes at the same time. 

empty crate

1 marble

2 bouncy balls

Scissors

Craft Knife

pencil

Paper

white glue

straws

double-sided tape

paper towel tube

Marble Maze

Christmas

Hanukkah

science project

toy design

engineering

winter crafts

printable

gift

Give the gift of entertainment with this holiday puzzle box. Wrap your special someone’s present in this box and then sit back and watch them try to open it.Download the printable <a href="http://images.kiwicrate.com/diy_ad/KiwiCo-Holiday-Puzzle-Box-Printable.pdf">here</a>.Looking for another hands-on project that engages your creativity and logic skills? Construct a mechanical chessboard with hidden drawers with a <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/build-play-chess-set/5965" target="_self">Build and Play Chess Set</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store" target="_self">KiwiCo Store</a>!

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Gather your materials. 
Looking for a gift? Checkout KiwiCo's <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/christmas-toys/?diy=inline">Christmas gifts here</a>.

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Cut out the T-shape pieces from the printable. Then, cut out the shaded areas. 

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Glue the T-shape pieces to a piece of cardboard.

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Cut out the T-shape cardboard pieces by cutting along the outline. 

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On the larger T-shape piece, score the cardboard on the dotted orange lines. On the smaller T-shape piece, score the cardboard on the opposite side of the cardboard.  

Lightly run your X-acto blade on the folded line to score the cardboard, creating a hard crease. This will make it easier to fold the cardboard into a box. 

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Stick the brads into the two small holes on the largest T-shape piece. Do not secure them yet. 

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Line up the smaller T-shape piece over the larger one as pictured. 

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Move the brads along the track until they are in the narrower part of the track. Then, secure the brads in place. 

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Take the smaller T-shape piece off of the larger one by sliding it along the track towards the circles and set it aside. Then, turn the piece over and glue the back of the brads in place.

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Fold each of the T-shape pieces into a box. Then, glue it together. 

We used rubber bands to hold the box together while it dried. 

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Wrap both the top and the bottom of the box in wrapping paper. 

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Carefully cut out the bottom of each wrapping paper to reveal the tracks and brads that are used to open the box. 

Tape the edges of the wrapping paper down to make it easier to open the box.

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Put a gift inside the box, close it, and top it with a bow! See how long it takes the receiver to figure out how to open the box.  

printable (printed on cardstock)

x-acto knife

cardboard

brads (2)

wrapping paper

clear tape

decorative bow

Winter Break

Holiday Puzzle Box

sounds

art project

craft

painting

sound science

music

musical instrument

Use a mailing tube and some acrylic paints to create these beautiful didgeridoos from Australia.

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Gather books and/or print outs from the internet of traditional Aboriginal symbols to share with your child. Look at the symbols and talk about what they mean. Choose a few favorites to put on the didgeridoo.

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Prepare mailing tubes by removing the plastic end caps and any stickers that might be on them.

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Prepare your palette. Remember to choose earth tones when selecting colors.

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Paint the symbols and designs on the mailing tubes to create the decorations for the didgeridoos.

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Allow the didgeridoos to dry and then try them out!

mailing tubes (1 per child)

acrylic paint (in earth tones)

paintbrushes

Make a Didgeridoo

indoor project

recycled

If you're like me, there's a pretty good chance that you have a growing "collection" of toilet paper and maybe paper towel rolls filling up your recycling bin, and you may have already found ways to repurpose them into crafts with your kids. This project was born out of my daughter's interest in marble runs, and it kept her entertained for hours over the course of a week, which is truly a feat! What I especially love about this activity is that it requires very little in terms of materials, the clean-up is minimal, and it encourages children to use problem-solving and creative thinking skills.

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My daughter began by decorating the tubes with strips of colorful tape. When she was done, I cut the rolls lengthwise and then she decorated the inside of the rolls with markers.

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With her help and input, I taped the tubes to a canvas with blue painters tape, and then we tested the run to see if it worked. It did! If you look closely you'll see an orange marble falling (very quickly) out of the bottom of the last chute. The nice thing about the tape is that you can move the parts around easily, add new chutes, and test out different configurations. After this prototype, we made another much larger run directly on our newly-painted walls--and it worked out great.

Happy rolling!

toilet paper tubes

masking tape

scissors

marbles

markers

Cardboard Tube Marble Run

easy craft

A simple and very easy way to learn to weave yarn!  We used a stick and a piece of cardboard to make this pretty sampler....

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We tried weaving with different tools, but found this stick method to be the easiest for Madeleine to maneuver.  We just put the stick in the pencil sharpener to make it a little pointed.

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Maddie chose her first yarn, and we wound it around the cardboard, and taped it on the back.

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We cut a length of string, and tied and wound it around the stick, and began the weave.

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You could use all different sorts of textures...ribbons, twines, yarns...for this one we kept it simple with yarns.

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Soon she was done, and we cut down the middle on the back, and she tied all the ends together.

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"What are you going to do with it?  You could make it into a bracelet...." I asked her, wondering if we needed to leave on the strings, "Or a rug for your Barbie house..."
"I'm going to use it for a washcloth for my baby dolls!"
Perfect!

cardboard scrap

yarn

tape

stick

Cardboard Weave

outdoor game

pretend play

outdoor activities

recycled craft materials

For little explorers and pirates alike, the telescope is an essential play accessory. And kids certainly know how to convert a tube into a scope! For us it's a weekly occurrence that I toss a spent paper tube to my five-year-old son, who immediately puts it to his eye for spotting.

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The no frills step up from the paper towel tube is to roll colored construction paper around the tube and tape on a cuff.

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To make a cone-shaped telescope, we tried layering up different-sized tubes and paper cups.

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We painted it brown to get that rustic look.

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Now, with telescopes in hands and hats on heads, we're ready to play our pirate spotting game. This is a fun one for a pirate play date. Here's what we did:

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Start out with a painted scene on a big thick piece of paper or cardboard. In this case my son painted pirate ships and an island, with no help or hints from me! The point is to keep the scene fairly simple, because you'll be adding to it as you go along.

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Next,  all the pirates scope the scene for a minute or two until they feel they've got it in their memory. Then a few chosen pirates get blindfolded.
One pirate (or a parent) makes  a small change to the scene. For example, the painter adds a new tree, a bird, or a bit of treasure. Next, the blindfolded pirates remove their blindfolds and use their telescopes to see how quickly they can spot what's different in the scene! If you don't want to bother with painting, you can play the game with objects or toys in your backyard or in a room on a rainy day. And of course, you can always bury and find hidden treasure!

paint

Pirate Telescope Spotting Game

Fourth of July

My kids love decorating for the holidays, and garlands are one of the easiest ways to do so. They loved making these sparkly, six-pointed stars out of cardboard tubes. The stars were easy to make...and a great way to recycle!

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Gather your supplies. We used a glue stick since it dries fast and is less messy. We also used loose glitter and glitter glue to help decorate. (When using loose glue you will want a paper plate or piece of paper to put the glitter on.) 

Panda Crate

Sprout: Koala Crate

Labs: Kiwi Crate

World: Atlas Crate

Studio: Doodle Crate

Labs: Tinker Crate

Studio: Maker Crate

Labs: Eureka Crate

33 creative cardboard crafts projects for kids

Screen-free fun!