Friday was quite a day at Aberdeen Primary School. We featured our very first Cardboard Challenge, and it was so exciting!!!! High hopes were in the air, and it was every bit of what we anticipated and more!
The Cardboard Challenge is a global movement that started a few years ago all because of a little boy named Caine. During the summer, Caine had to come to work with his dad at the auto shop everyday. To save Caine from boredom, he started to take boxes from the back, and began building games, eventually turning them into an arcade. Caine finally had his first customer after months of waiting. This customer could not believe he was the only one to play Caine’s arcade, and this customer decided to make a video about Caine and his arcade, advertising it all over social media. Caine came back to the shop one day to find hundreds of customers, and they continue to come on a daily basis to play Caine’s arcade. Caine now has his very own scholarship fund, and it all started because one ten year old boy decided to get creative with a box!
Now all across the world, schools, children, and communities come together to be part the the Global Cardboard Challenge. This year it took place on October 7th. Since that is a Saturday, APS decided to try this new adventure on Friday, October 6th in the afternoon. For the younger grades, an hour and a half is about all they could handle, but I can see higher grades being able to do this all day! Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade students blew it out of the water! We saw ships, houses, cars, hug machines, rockets, basketball hoops, forts, cakes, and so much more! The amount of parent involvement was astonishing! There is nothing better than seeing a student-filled event bring communities together!
So how do you set up a Cardboard Challenge? It is not that hard! Since this was our first time, we learned what worked well, and what we can do next time to make it even better! I am the STEM teacher at APS so I get to meet with every class each week. This worked well for us since I was able to use a class period to tell the students about the challenge. I read them the book, The Most Magnificent Thing, and we discussed struggles when trying to build, and how to persevere when things do not go the way we want it to. Then I showed them the video about Caine’s Arcade. They were completely hooked after this!!! Next I modeled a few pictures and examples of things they could build, and then they set to work on their blueprint! If a STEM teacher is not at your school, teachers can take 30-45 minutes to explain the challenge to students and let make their blueprint.
The next step was to get all staff, parents, and the rest of the community involved. Letters went home to parents, explaining about the events, supplies we needed (cardboard, tape, and markers), and asking for volunteers! If a school does not have a lot of volunteers, it would be best to ask a High School ( We reached out to Pinehurst). Next year, we plan to ask one or two companies to just drop off loads of cardboard a week or two in advance instead of tons of cardboard coming in everyday. We discovered that painter’s tape and masking tape were the easiest to tear and worked best for the little ones. Posters were placed everywhere to continue to get the students excited!
A couple days before the event started, I made a list of where all the teachers would be to give to the office so they could direct volunteers. I passed out the children's blueprints, markers, tape, and box-cutters to every teacher. We purchased these ahead of time and only gave to adults! I emailed all special teachers and any extra teachers that could help to ask for help in passing out cardboard to each grade or classroom before the event started.
On the day of the event, we started to pass out cardboard to each grade about an hour before the event started.. Teachers chose where they wanted to hold the challenge. Students filled classrooms, hallways, and outside. Each grade was called down to their area. Then students began to grab cardboard and get to work! Ideas and little minds were fast at work, letting their creativity run loose! Volunteers were very helpful in making these wonderful creations a success!
When the challenge was over, we had the hardest job: Clean-Up! We decided to tear down our inventions and recycle the cardboard. Students took the cardboard down and then placed it in a designated area. It would be a good idea to call the town or public works ahead of time to see if they can pick up the cardboard the day of or after!
There was a little bit of work involved with the Cardboard Challenge, but it was well worth it! Students loved it, and are still talking about it! I hear comments like, “Cardboard Challenge was the best day ever!!!” “When are we doing the Cardboard Challenge again?” The Cardboard Challenge contains so many wonderful benefits to children. It builds creativity. It goes over the engineering process of ask, imagine, design, build, and create. This process can also be applied to many other academic processes, such as the writing process. Students also learn that things may not always work the first time they try, and they will have to go back and try again. Students learn to persevere even when they are becoming frustrating or something is hard. Most importantly students learn how work together in a fun and enjoyable way and become part of a team.
A box can be many things if we just let students’ imaginations run wild! The Cardboard Challenge is a must at any school!
