Thinking outside the box: birthday cake shoebox project

As I have said many times before, AB loves boxes of all shapes and sizes. She comes up with lots of creatives uses: cars, push toys, cradles, etc. Most days I just let her stake her claim on whatever newly emptied box we have in our home but every once in awhile I get an idea for how that box can be upgraded. That's what happened with this adorable, little size 2 shoebox. I thought this would make a great fine motor skill builder. 

Supplies needed:

Shoe box (or other small but sturdy box)

Straws

Scissors

Optional-contact paper, scrapbook paper

All you do here is use the scissors to poke a number of small holes in the box. Poke the straws in/out of the holes you have created. Since our box was small, I cut our straws in half. After several weeks of having this "toy" around our house I decided to make it a bit prettier and sturdier by covering it with scrapbook and contact paper but you can skip that step if you want.

AB loves fitting the straws in the different holes and my genius mother pointed out that it looks like a birthday cake with candles in it. When AB gets a bit older I will add the modification of using different colored straws as candles and color-coding the holes but for now she loves this "toy" as is.