The One With Our Cardboard Creations #sol15

Every Tuesday, I participate in the Slice of Life challenge at Two Writing Teachers. If you want to participate, you can link up at their Slice of Life Story Post on Tuesdays or you can just head on over there to check out other people's stories. For more information on what a Slice of Life post is about, you can go here. 

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Back in December, I wrote a post called The One With Cardboard Creativity where I shared the Caine's Arcade video about a boy who uses old cardboard boxes to design his own arcade. A couple weeks ago, when my brother and his family were in town to celebrate Christmas, we brought out all the cardboard we saved from Christmas and showed the video. It was hardly over and the kids were already diving into the cardboard. I thought about dividing us into teams but it worked out that those who had an idea when for it and others who needed some help teamed up with someone else. I started working with one of my nephews and a huge smile crossed my face when I looked up to see my brother and sister-in-law talking quietly in the corner as they planned. My husband and sister both grabbed giant pieces of cardboard and were brainstorming together, too.

After we passed the scissors, the marker, and the tape back and forth countless times and tried out our cardboard games, we finally were ready to let others play what we came up with. We took turns introducing our games and letting others play and then we did a huge competition where everyone played each game and we added up the points at the end. It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon. Everyone was busy, we were all spending time together, and we put our brains to work. 

I use technology a lot, my kids love the apps and games but I love that they could still use their imaginations to come up with their own cardboard arcade creations. It was so fun to watch as we talked through ideas and planned. Being able to look at a piece of cardboard and see how it could be made into an arcade game might be silly to some but it was perfect for us.