Roll up yesterday's comics, sports pages and want ads into nifty long tubes to make your own "construction set" for hours of creative building fun with your kids. The simple-to-make tubes are the building blocks, so to speak, for making zany sculptures, skyscrapers and even windmills. If you lose a piece, a replacement tube is as close as this newspaper page you are reading.
Let's get rolling:
Unfold three full sheets of newspaper and stack them on top of each other. Roll the newspaper around a pencil or dowel, starting at the corner and rolling diagonally across the paper. Shake out the pencil or dowel. Tape the loose end of newspaper to the roll.
Once you've made several newspaper tubes, start bending and taping them together with masking tape in any form you dream up! For a building, bend each tube into a triangle or square and then tape the different shapes together. You might want to make a barn or a doghouse, for starters. Or bend into ovals and squares to make miniature people and pets. At first, all the tubes may just look like random bits and pieces — until you connect them! And then the whole is greater than its parts. You and your kids will discover an entirely new way of looking at familiar objects.
After you've completed your first simple structure, your kids might get carried away and want to develop an energy-efficient village with a wind-powered city hall.
Bring out trucks, trains and other play objects from the toy box for storytelling and imaginative play. You might even want to decorate and paint some of the newspaper sculptures with poster paint. Who knows, with all this creativity you might be growing an architect, city planner ... or an imagination!
Extra tip for school-age kids: To make a tube that is bendable and keeps its shape, insert an unfolded wire hanger or piece of sturdy wire into the tube and tape in place.
Donna Erickson's new award-winning television series "Donna's Day" is airing on public television nationwide. Visit www.donnasday.com to find out when it airs on your local PBS station and to sign up for Donna's e-newsletter. Her latest book is "Donna Erickson's Fabulous Funstuff for Families." © Donna Erickson. Dist. by King Features Syndicate