What Children Can Learn from a Cardboard Box

A plain cardboard box can make for an exceptional learning experience! In this article, you will learn about six learning dimensions supported by cardboard box play. Whether your cardboard box is a great big refrigerator box, or a regular-sized cardboard box, this article will demonstrate the powerful learning benefits of playing with cardboard boxes for kids from babies to toddlers. Plus, download a Brain Basics Infographic to expand your understanding of how children grow and learn.

Cardboard Box Potential

Like red rubber balls and teddy bears, skipping rope, sticky fingers, boo-boo kisses, bath time pouts, and nighty-night tuck-ins, I think cardboard boxes are part of the essential kit for little kids. And the granddaddy of them all is a refrigerator box. Guess what arrived at my house the other day? (Hee-hee-hee!)

After spending a day with my grandchildren and a big cardboard box, I got to thinking about why kids love cardboard boxes and why cardboard boxes are great for kids.

Brain Basics

Multiple experiences that engage multiple senses plant information deeply in the brain. This is why a cardboard box with its many learning dimensions is so great for kids. Different centers in the brain handle different major functions. In the early years of life, those centers learn to work together in harmony to create what we experience as human thought, feeling, movement, and expression. And broadly, that brain development happens from the bottom up. 

Six Learning Dimensions of a Cardboard Box (Refrigerator or Otherwise)

There are six learning dimensions supported by cardboard box play: spatial awareness, comfort and security, empowerment, control, asensory play, and imagination. 

Spatial Awareness 

Babies do it. Toddlers do it. Preschoolers do it. (And I bet more than once you’ve secretly wanted to do it, too.) The first thing little kids do when confronted with a cardboard box is try to get in it. Cute as this is, there’s actually an important reason why they do this. It’s called spatial awareness.

In their early years, little ones spend a good deal of time getting to know their bodies, and with that comes the necessary question, “How big am I?” But they’re growing, so the answer to that question keeps changing. That’s why kids are constantly testing their size by crawling in, through, around, over, and under things. Cardboard boxes are often the perfect size for this kind of spatial exploration.

Comfort and Security 

There’s also an emotional component to seeking out small spaces. Right from the start, children are soothed by a sense of being bundled up or embraced in their caregiver’s arms. This need for “denning” continues throughout childhood (and I would argue throughout life) because in many ways, it’s a subconscious return to the comfort of the womb.

Empowerment

Imagine what it’s like to always be the smallest person in a room. Everything is sized for big people. However, in small spaces, kids feel BIG. (Sometimes it’s good to be small.)

Likewise, the lightweight construction of a cardboard box enables young children to move and manipulate an object that is bigger than they are. In other words, cardboard yields to their will.

Control

Cardboard boxes make ideal hiding places. And kids love to hide. Now, I haven’t made a scientific study of this, but I believe the hiding game may well be the first experience a child has with knowing something that you don’t know. And I think this is such a powerful idea that, when we grow up, we intuitively get it.

Think about it. The hiding game usually begins with an impish grin as she ducks out of sight. Without even thinking about it, you join the game. “Hmmm. I wonder where Caitlin is? I can’t see her. Is she under the pillow? No. Is she behind the couch? No. Hmmm. Is she on my head? No . . .”

Then comes the big surprise: “Here I am!” And of course, the tone in her voice lets you know she’s got one up on you. What fun! And what a powerful role reversal that is.

Asensory Play

I’ve read and written a lot about the importance of providing children with rich sensory experiences each and every day. Yet asensory experiences play an important role in sensory development, as well.

For instance, the humble cardboard box is a great example of an asensory environment. The brown color suggests nothing in particular. The smooth sides imply little. The cube structure defines empty space. The subtle smell lacks distraction. The sound of the cardboard folding is muted and music-less. This very lack of sensory inputs (or perhaps, more accurately, the subtle nature of these sensory inputs) is an essential contrast to the more powerful and deliberate stimulation we traditionally think of when we talk about “sensory play.”

This relief from the sensory world may explain, in part, why kids find the confines of a cardboard box so appealing. And of course, it's very neutrality is the blank slate upon which children so easily imprint their imaginations. 

Imagination

Much has been written about imaginative play, but for my money, the minimalist Not a Box by Antoinette Portis says all that needs to be said on the subject.

Introducing a Big Cardboard Box

For the record, turning a box into a plaything is an eco-friendly first lesson in waste-not, want-not. Just remember to remove any staples or other sharp objects first. So, when you have the opportunity, try encouraging preschoolers to think about the concept of reusing things for other purposes. For instance, you might explain the purpose of packaging—that the box was designed to protect the product so that it wouldn’t get scratched. But that doesn’t mean that’s the only thing you can do with a box. Then say aloud, “I wonder what we could do with this big box? What do you think?”

A child’s natural curiosity should take over, but if the size of the thing is a bit overwhelming, you might want to encourage a few ideas to get them started, and before you know it, you won’t be able to get them out of it! For this post, we focused on oversized boxes, but any size box can be put to reuse for recycled fun. Visit our Cardboard Box Fun board on Pinterest for more activities and ideas. 

We can provide kids with exceptional tools for learning that are also readily accessible. The next time you come across a cardboard box, consider its potential for six learning dimensions supported by cardboard box play—spatial awareness, comfort and security, empowerment, control, asensory play, and imagination—for kids of all ages.