A great way to ignite your students’ curiosity and expand their imagination!
We spent quite a bit of time exploring different ways you can use a box in our classroom. Of course, if you haven’t read the book “Not a Box” by Antoinette Portis then you might not understand that any box you may have around is really not a box…
Introducing a Story
“Not a Box” by Antoinette Portis is a simply illustrated book about using one’s imagination to consider what else a box could be…
Gathering Materials
I started collecting boxes all throughout the summer so I had put together a nice assortment of empty boxes before school started this year to share with the children…
Expanding on the Story
After reading our story, I had each child go and select 2 boxes (I had saved way more than I really needed) and then we did a little imagining of our own to decide what could be done or made if we put all of our boxes together…
Using Trial and Error
We worked together to build a tall tower. This was no easy task because we had to figure out which boxes were largest to smallest as the tower got higher and higher and we had to make sure our boxes were balanced well so they wouldn’t fall over…
Promoting Teamwork
Our tower got so high that we had to bring over the step ladder to try and reach the very top of our tower…
In fact, our tower got so high that no one could reach the very top except Mrs. Courtney. She even had to use the step ladder, too!…
Other Discoveries
We also discovered a box just might be a bridge to walk across…
Or a box might just be a chair you can sit on…
Or a box might just be a footstool you can stand on…
Or a box might just be a brick you can build castles with…
Expanding their Imagination
The children explored all the empty boxes during our center time and then we took them all outside to play a simple relay game…
Which I will share in my next post! Now, what else could we build with all of these boxes?
Available on Amazon
Link to “Sitting in My Box” is a Kindle edition
Links to Grow on
