Box Car Racer

I know, a box car isn't a new or overly novel idea but sometimes we need to be reminded of the classics.  My four year old and I were trying to think of something fun to do together while the younger one was sleeping.  This is what we came up with.  I think pretty much anything having to do with cars is a winner with little boys.

We started out by spray painting our box.  You don't have to paint it; we just had the paint on hand and thought it would be fun.  You should really let the paint dry over night or it will rub off on everything it touches.

Next we needed to make our steering wheel, headlights, tailights, and wheels.  For the steering wheel we used a paper plate.  My boy had fun decorating everything by coloring them.  For the wheels we cut out the middles of the paper plates so they would be roughly porportionate to the box.  The headlights were orange construction paper circles and the tail lights were red construction paper circles.

To attach the steering wheel you poke a small hole through the plate and box.  Then attach the plate with a brad.  I let the boy glue on the wheels and lights.

Here he is taking the car for a spin.  This was a fun craft for us to do together; not too time consuming and we used only things that were already on hand around the house.