Got Styrofoam?

At this time of year there seems to be an abundance of styrofoam around the house. We got a new piece of furniture and it had loads of styrofoam in all shapes and sizes. The minute I opened the box, I knew the boys were in for loads of fun and I was in for a huge mess. I took a deep breath and just let them go for it. And, let’s see, we are still “going for it” 4 days later…

When the box first opened it was a free for all. Styrofoam was EVERYWHERE!  Once the newness of it all wore off, the boys play took on a bit more of a purpose. They loaded it all back in the huge box it came in, sat IN it and used their hands and some child-safe scissors to cut it into smaller pieces.

Then it was onto big trucks. The loader and dumptruck came out and they loaded, dumped and loaded again. I even got them to load a great deal of the little pieces into bags to take to the recycling center! I, of course, left some in the box because they were enjoying it so much.

As they played in the box with the trucks, I started fiddling with the styrofoam as well.  First I used some of the pieces to create an iceberg. Once the boys noticed what I was doing, they joined in and we created this ice fort. We used the styrofoam pieces and my hot glue gun to assemble the fort.  The Playmobil “guys” then enjoyed some playtime in the ice fort!

Later on that day, while the boys played once again in the styrofoam I began stacking the foam pieces one on top of another. My eldest said, “Mom that looks like a Christmas tree!” And, by golly, it sure did. We worked on it together for a while and when it was “right” we stuck a BBQ skewer through the middle to keep it together and painted it!

As my eldest and I painted the tree, my youngest enjoyed painting larger pieces of the styrofoam.

Finally, the styrofoam tree was done and we added a piece on the top for the star.

It was really pretty just like this, but we decided to add some berries (not ornaments) to the tree to look wintery.  We painted several pieces of styrofoam red and glued them to the tree with my hot glue gun.

Here is how our finished tree looks. It will take center stage on our Christmas table this  year. And, after Christmas is over, we will remove the star on top and perhaps add some snow to look even more wintry.

So, what will you do with all the styrofoam you collect this year?

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