UPDATE!
PLAY DAY WILL BE POSTPONED UNTIL NOVEMBER DUE TO BUILDING REPAIR.
REVISED DATE TO FOLLOW>>>>>>>>>>>>
Cafe Slow: 〒185-0022 Tokyo, Kokubunji, 東元町2丁目20
The cafe will be closed that day, so please bring your obento!
Workshops
UPDATE!
PLAY DAY WILL BE POSTPONED UNTIL NOVEMBER DUE TO BUILDING REPAIR.
REVISED DATE TO FOLLOW>>>>>>>>>>>>
Cafe Slow: 〒185-0022 Tokyo, Kokubunji, 東元町2丁目20
The cafe will be closed that day, so please bring your obento!
I had a great time with all the kids and parents that came to the mask-making workshop. Their creativity transformed a pile of cardboard and paper recyclables into a fun menagerie of hats, masks, wigs and mythical creatures. I also loved sharing my family's long time tradition of making pinatas (this time in cardboard) with so many families who had no idea what pinatas were.
Thanks to everyone who helped with clean-up, spreading the word through email, my very kind friends who translated for me, and to everyone who came out on such a beautiful day to enjoy the fun of making and celebrating together.
In cooperation with Play Park Kujira Yama ( a weekly pop-up adventure playground in Tokyo) I'll be leading a Halloween mask-making workshop culminating with a cardboard pinata we'll decorate the day of the event. Oide!
Who: preschool and elementary aged children and their parents
What: recyclable Halloween hat and mask making
Where: Koganei Musashino Park next to Kujira Yama
When: Friday, October 24th, 2014 from 2pm - 4:30pm
Please bring some light weight cardboard, a stapler and scissors (with your name on them) and okashi/snacks to fill our pinata!
Another cardboard adventure out in the park!
This time I learned something important.
I love DEconstruction,
but
not destruction.
The kids that came out to play built a fun labyrinth of houses/caves and then slowly took the whole thing apart. It was really great just watching them. I saw a two year old saw cardboard for about an hour straight. In the same groove. I loved it.
Later in the week I took just the Windballs to another park to play, and a few teenage boys kicked them around a bit. It was good, I was glad to see them enjoying them, but then they just stomped on them, shattering the MakeDos to bits before running off. I didn't love it. My teacher voice came out.
Did you see the adorable pink cardboard kitchen that I found at the grocery store where I sourced all the cardboard?
This Friday the adventure playground Play Park will be hosting us for a "Cardboard Play Day" to celebrate the Global Cardboard Challenge. We're praying for sun, since a rain day will mean re-scheduling, but either way preparations are in the works for an amazing day.
Play Park is part of an incredible, volunteer supported NGO (NPO) called Asobiba that operates a variety of permanent and temporary adventure playgrounds throughout Tokyo. I'm so excited to work with them and hope to bring cardboard play into their adventure play repertoire in the future!
If you're free, and you're in Tokyo, please join us!
武蔵野公園 クジラ山
Location: Musashino Park's Whale Mountain プレー パーク October 4, 2013 2013年 10月 4日 FREE 無料 12pm-5pm 午前12時 - 午後5時 Rainy Day = canceled 雨降りの日 = 取消
The Global Cardboard Challenge is here again! Will you be joining THE WORLD on October 5th, 2014 to either play or host an event?
For everything Caine's Arcade and The Global Day of Play, please be sure to check out The Imagination Foundation's excellent website and resources.
I'm also excited to be planning my own event in collaboration with a local adventure playground here in Tokyo! More information to come, but until then I want to share some of my insights from hosting 5+ events last year.......
*10 Tips for Cardboard Play Day*
1. It's all about the cardboard!
Provide a wide variety of cardboard! Shoe boxes, small boxes, over-sized boxes, cardboard tubes, and whatever other reclaimed materials you've collected all add to the diversity and creativity of what kids create.
A rule of thumb that I follow is 1 square meter of cardboard for every 20-30 kids
2.Don't let cardboard get unruly.
Cardboard + kids can = chaos!
Keep the cardboard upright if you can (as if each piece were a book on a book shelf.) That way there is thought in selecting the cardboard and it doesn't get kicked around and stepped on.
It's even more helpful to organize your cardboard by size. (Think of a lumber yard.) Kids often know what size materials they need and if the cardboard is organized then kids won't have to spend time rooting around through big piles to get what they want.
3. Give them tool boxes.
Tool boxes allow kids to be mobile and have everything they need to build whatever, wherever, with whoever.
A tool box can be as simple as a shoe box, or a cardboard six pack.
Provide a place that is clearly marked for kids to return tool boxes when they're finished working or ready to leave the play day.
4. Provide a secure area for kids to keep their stuff (i.e. coat check).
Kids easily loose track of their new friendship bracelet, cell phone, hooded sweatshirt, etc.
Create a place (as simple as a "drop" pile), or even better an informal system like a coat check, for keeping track of kids' things so they can focus on building and collaborating with their friends, and you can alleviate the hassle of having to help them search for their lost items.
5. Keep the organizer free.
If you are organizing a cardboard play day, recruit enough parent volunteers to assist kids so you're free to trouble shoot any problems that might pop up.
Parents get excited and often want to share or ask questions. If you're responsibility is to supervise kids, you may be torn between providing adequate supervision and having a great conversation with a future cardboard enthusiast.
It's also helpful to have a volunteer that is solely devoted to taking photos so you have some great shots for promoting your event next year.
6. Provide a theme/give permission
Telling kids that they can build whatever they want is exhilarating for some and overwhelming for others.
Providing a theme a invites collaboration and helps kids narrow their focus....
We're building a village....
We're building a cardboard maze....
We're making cardboard costumes....
We're making an arcade....
It's a cardboard ocean!
Some kids need permission to create and many just want to be told it's OK to be creative and let loose. Indulge them! This is their time to think big and we want to encourage them in any way we can.
7. Give kids real tools.
It's important to gauge your audience, (parents kids and the host institution) when deciding what kind of tools you're going to make available to participants. I prefer to always give kids "real tools" as opposed to dumbed down versions that can cause frustration. In the real world, however that's not always possible.
If kids are only allowed to use safety scissors and plastic saws, try arming your adult volunteers with more professional tools that can help finish the job. These are the tools I've found to be most effective and in my opinion entirely kid-friendly, but they require instruction and adult supervision:
Phillips head screw driver
scissors
cordless drill
8. Use reusable fasteners.
To build really cool, big stuff out of cardboard you need some kind of fastener to hold everything together. (tape and hot glue just don't cut it!) There are 3 that stand out in my opinion, based on their re-usability AND functionality.
MakeDo
re-usable zip ties
nuts and bolts
All of these fasteners have different price points and advantages and disadvantages, so I really recommend getting a few of each and test driving them at home before your event.
It's really helpful to show participants how the fastener you're using works when kids arrive, so keep some supplies in your pocket to quickly demonstrate as you greet new arrivals.
9. Have an exit strategy.
Sometimes kids are so excited at cardboard play day, they can't stop building! Givie kids a heads-up starting 30 minutes before cleanup, so they can get focused on completion and get ready to say goodbye to their creations.
Make sure you have a plan for recycling your cardboard. I was once left in a terrible position at a play day, when the organization that donated the cardboard said they could no longer take it back! I had to haul it all back to my home by bike and then put it out for recycling over a course of several weeks!
If you haven't prearranged volunteers for cleaning up and bundling cardboard at the end of your event, a clipboard signup is handy when participants arrive and usually provides you with enough hands to finish the job.
10. Get feedback.
This is something new I'm hoping to try this year; a one sentence question for kids as they're cleaning up or heading out.... you could also try a paper-pencil survey or even a simple high five?
What would you build next time?
Is it more fun to work by yourself, with your mom and dad, or with a friend?
What was the best part about today?
Have you ever made/built something like this? Why/Why not?
See you next year?
[slideshow_deploy id='3717'] This week was filled with lots of play, lots of cardboard, and lots of discovery. I learned a lot by watching children and parents play and build together during the two events that took place.
The first was a play event for my daughter's Yoji group, a play group that meets weekly at the local Jidokan (a kind of youth community center). The other was at a local park called Kajino Koen. The Kahjino event hosted lots of local groups that support the park, like Play Park: a local adventure play organization that facilitates weekly play events for children.
Play Park built an amazingly tall and steep wooden slide with wooden handholds, as well as over-sized hammocks, rope walkways, and braided swings. I'm in love with the work that they do and I'm hoping to deepen my relationship with their community in the coming year.
A few things I learned this week:
Crayons (bright, waxy pastel ones) play really nicely with cardboard. Markers wander, and paint is a pain to clean up.
Parents love to play like children. Children give them a great cover for indulging in the kind of play that they used to do.... and at the same time children fall in love with their parents all over again. There is an amazing playful connection that Is kindled, and when I see parents leave cardboard events smiling, I know an imaginative little fire has been lit and will grow into something more.
pre-teen boys like to kick cardboard boxes and stab them with screw drivers. At first I bristle, and then I watch for a while and see the totally therapeutic effect of this activity for them. They calm down, start talking to each other and then start to cooperate and build. Cardboard stabbing boys, I welcome you, and I love to see the amazing things you can build with cardboard.
Girls can bring a quiet measured intensity to building with cardboard. I love watching them deliberate while considering all the details like widows and shelving...their excitement is contagious.
I love connecting with people through cardboard, seeing parents build something for their children, seeing children build something else for themselves, watching three year olds rip their older brothers around in the back of wheelie cardboard boxes.
What can I say? I'm hooked.
Resources: How to put wheels on a box and instructions for Tanaka Satoshi's Giant Cardboard Windballs
A few photos from our first ever, open-to-the-Tokyo-public, cardboard pop-up play day.
We ran the event with just recycled cardboard, a few tools, bike power, and creative spirit.
Neighboring Ito Yokado kindly helped us bring many beautiful boxes over from their store (including the fantastic red stuff which was left over from New Year's postcard displays) and MakeDo pieces were lent to us by the American School of Japan.
We assembled these incredible Wind-balls prior to the play day, with Tanaka Satoshi's design plans that you can get here. Just plain fun. We've now got the smaller one up as a lampshade in the girls' room and it's gorgeous.
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The highlight of the day was seeing parents and children building together. Once my Japanese teacher helped me to write a sign in Japanese inviting everyone to play freely, they all started getting to it. Little houses, castles, tunnels, trains and forts....it's all poetry to me.
The same box on wheels that I made about 8 months ago (and flew back and forth from the US with) withstood countless laps on the concrete around the grass patch. I'm thinking we could do a great pop-up based on these alone....where to reclaim some old wheels????
Thanks to my friends from MIA, my husband (who even made dinner after we got home) and Chris B of a small lab for coming out, bearing the cold, taking pictures (many of which you see here) and wrangling cardboard with us at the end. A true labor of cardboard love! I really appreciate your support.
I'm looking forward to hosting more pop-ups and play days in 2013 so stay tuned for more info on where we'll be next...
....of course I hope you'll consider having a few cardboard pop-ups in your own home in the meantime?
On Saturday we were excited to host another Cardboard Play Day at the American School in Japan with an enthusiastic group of young builders.
Kids living in dense urban areas like Tokyo usually don't have a backyard or nearby place where they can muck around.
Providing the space and materials for cardboard tinkering is akin to tree house building for city kids (as well as a beefy upgrade from blanket and sofa cushion forts.)
We had the most gorgeous day of pre-winter weather that you could hope for and a great turn out of kids and parents.
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I really enjoyed working side by side with the kids this time, holding pieces of cardboard together for them and taking their direction as they figured out how to attach shelving, install "TVs" and keep intruders out of their igloos.
The kids faced the perils of dome collapse and near exhaustion from sawing cardboard doors and windows all day, but we still we had to kick them out by 2:00 so we could cleanup and go home...
Looking forward to putting on another cardboard play day again really soon!
What can I say? I'm exhausted, but smiling away as I type this...The energy and enthusiasm of the kids that came out to play was incredible. Their creations- inventive, ridiculous, beautiful, fun- gave me that electric feeling of seeing creative minds at work.
My favorite moment of the day was peeking inside the doorway of a cardboard tunnel to discover a secret shelf holding an overflowing treasure pot of candy collected from the Homecoming Day festivities. It felt a lot like discovering a squirrel's cache of acorns hastily piled up for winter in the hidden nook of a tree...
I can't leave without extending my sincerest thanks to the American School in Japan staff and parent volunteers for working to make the Day of Cardboard Play happen. I also send a deep bow to MakeDo Japan for donating MakeDo kits (that the kids had a blast with) and last but not least, Tanaka Satoshi for all his help and inspiration. You can see his signature work in the video clip below.
Back again tomorrow with more cardboard costume ideas. Can't wait to see more of the pictures that are trickling into the Flickr pool.....Hey, why don't you go ahead and upload yours right now?