Junk creations

I have a storage bin underneath my bed.  Every time I go to throw something away I first question if it could be used by children to create.  If my answer is yes, I throw it under my bed in the bin.  Then when the mood strikes me I get the bin out and let the kids at it.

Yesterday was a creating kind of afternoon since I had laundry that needed to be folded.  I got the bin out and told the kids to have fun with it.

James started gathering all the tubes from toilet paper, paper towel, and wrapping paper rolls.  We had quiet a collection.  Then he found an old egg carton and came to me with his idea. He said he needed to built it up so that balls could go through it and land in the egg carton.

Well, my idea of getting the laundry done never came to fruition because I found I needed to help him the entire time -- he is afraid of the hot glue gun.  This contraption he came up with was quiet interesting and in the end turned into a game.  I did the gluing and he did the telling.  I had him show me where to put everything.  He was so cute getting into the box and finding things that may work.

This is how the project looked in the end:

What is it?  It is a coin dropper game of course.  

You take a coin and drop it in any of the tubes you want

The point is to see which cup it lands in in the bottom

The cups have a different point value and some are harder to get to than others (sort of) 

James came up with good ways to have the coins go in different directions.  Admittedly the coin idea was mine since we didn't have balls or marbles that would work.  The coins are great because they really do go different ways each time even though this isn't too high tech of a toy.

First thing my kids did this morning was play with their new toy. 

Do you have a recycle junk area for your kids to make fun things out of?  If you don't you should start.  It is a great way to start creating in your home.  If you do have an place for these things, what are your favorite things to put in your junk creation box?