Cereal Box Puzzles

Want to hear something terrible?!?

Our area does not have a recycling plant!! (insert shocked face emoji here). Every time I have to throw our cardboard, plastics, and paper into the trash bin, I die just a little bit. Dramatics aside, I am seriously so sad by this. I have always done my best to recycle, so when we moved to a rural area and there was no recycling facility, I was kind of floored.

Sad, sad day. 

In order to make things better, I decided to focus my energy on the other two R’s of the recycling triad- reducing and reusing.

Cereal Box Puzzle

This cardboard box puzzle re-uses cereal boxes for a simple preschool activity (it’s actually a throwback from my earlier blog days). I just had to bring it back for Earth Day 2017, though because it seriously rocks! My boys have been solving and re-solving it for three days straight!

Supplies

This post contains affiliate links

• Cereal boxes
• Scissors
• Con-tact paper
• Masking tape

I started by cutting the cereal boxes into puzzle-ish shapes (cut several boxes at once to save time).

Then I just mounted some Con-Tact paper (sticky side out) with masking tape on my wall (well, it was actually first mounted on my cabinet…but this was getting in the way of me cooking when the kids were working on it. So we moved it on day two 😉 )

I separated each of the different puzzles into separate plates, but you can challenge an older child by mixing them all up!

After that, I just started cooking and invited my kids to complete the puzzle before breakfast was done (we were out of cereal, so I actually had to cook).

My three year old struggled a little more with this and needed some support.

Good thing my four-year-old is ALL. ABOUT. PUZZLES. He made a great helper took over the task!

Day three comes (notice the change of location, out of the cooking work area)), and we are still going strong!

My four-year-old even asked me if he could do it again later in the day ( a sign of a truly great activity!)

If you haven’t seen my original post on this, check it out here:

Add this idea to your Earth Day Ideas Pinterest board!