easy activity for kids Archives

Sometimes the very simplest things turn out to be the biggest hits, don’t they? Take these insanely easy paper tunnels for example… A totally random idea, thrown together on the spot, and yet Sam just loves them.

Do all little car lovers have a ‘thing’? I once nannied a little car lover who was obsessed with speed bumps. Like LOVED speed bumps. And Sam’s thing? Tunnels.

I don’t know what it is about them exactly, but he just freaking looovvvves tunnels. He’s constantly searching them out for his toy cars and will basically transform anything he can into a tunnel. Even if it’s your leg – hope you didn’t plan on moving any time soon {hah!}

So this afternoon when he woke from a nap talking about a tunnel for his purple concrete mixer, this little paper tunnel idea popped into my mind and it couldn’t be easier.

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Basically you need two things – washi tape and card stock {I love this stuff from Ikea – it’s super sturdy and the colours are gorgeous}. Oh, and a hard surface of some sort. All I did was cut some of the card stock in half and kept some whole, then folded little tabs on each side, and washi taped them to our coffee table to form little rainbow tunnels.

Easiest thing EVER.

He collected up a bunch of different cars and trucks, placed them in the middle of the table, and then drove them around and through the paper tunnels one-by-one.

One thing I really love about this activity besides it being so easy is that while the paper tunnels are fairly crash proof, the fact that they’re just paper taped down onto a table encourages Sam to practice slow, controlled, gentle movements – something that doesn’t always come naturally to him.

These remain on our coffee table currently and probably will for a while, but when we’re done with them, we’ll just take them off and tuck them away until next time, probably reusing the same paper tunnels several times over.