Little Villages

We love box card! It is so versatile for kids art projects of all shapes and sizes. It is sturdy (great as a base) , big (great to cut to whatever size you want), neutral brown (you can paint it however you wish) – mostly easy to cut (sometimes need a bit of adult help depending on how thick it is). 

We are always trying to think of fun, engaging and SIMPLE ideas for you to try with either your kids at home, or the students in your classroom. This idea we had featured in HAVEN MAGAZINE a little while ago – I thought it might be nice to share it with you here. 

This idea uses simple geometric shapes – squares, rectangles, triangles, circles – to create a small scale village (but you could certainly go BIG too which would look REALLY awesome too).

You don’t require many resources – card, scissors, PVA glue (or just glue sticks will work fine), and some markers.

Start by cutting up your card into an assortment of shapes. Cut some larger ones for the houses/ roofs, and some smaller ones for doors and windows. Then get busy arranging into little houses. Think about a few different ways of making your houses. Perhaps you could also create some trees. Use your glue to attach your houses together.

Now you can decorate with markers – you could also paint them with acrylics or watercolours too. We have also used some POSCA paint pens in our houses.

Once you have created all of your little houses and trees you could turn them into a little village. If you have a cardboard square base, you could use little pieces of blue tac to tac the houses and trees into position (this is cool, as you can then just keep moving them around freely), or hot-glue gun your little houses into a permanent position.

We also added into ours some little green card grass areas, a round pond, and some little roads.

This was such a fun process – and my daughter pulled out her little animal figurines to play with as part of this scene. A great way to explore how 2D can be transformed into something 3D.

Perhaps you might like to try this idea with your tribe or your class. Start collecting that cardboard!

Hope you have enjoyed this idea, and I hope it has inspired you in some creative way. 

Would love to know your thoughts – be sure to leave a comment – would love to hear what you think.

Stay creative folks.

Tracy x