Cardboard building shapes
Create your own building blocks using recycled cardboard and scissors.
Create your own building blocks using recycled cardboard and scissors.
Have you ever made your own toys using recycled materials?
In this activity you’ll make building blocks by cutting out shapes from recycled cardboard. You can then slot them together to create structures from your imagination.
If you’re looking for a more complicated building challenge, scroll to the bottom of the page for animals and castles.
This page will print, but looks a little funky. Click the button for a PDF version which looks a bit better. This is a stop-gap while we work on a better solution!
This is a two step activity and will take about an hour altogether, not including paint drying time.
If you want to paint the shapes, then you will need to create and decorate the shapes first, let the paint dry for an hour or two, and then build with them.
Age 3 and up. Younger children will require an adult to cut out the shapes and slits for them.
You know your children better than anyone, and you should judge whether they’re ready for this activity.
Find the cardboard that you are going to use; thick cardboard from packaging works well but so does thinner cereal box cardboard. For younger children, the thicker cardboard is better for building, but an adult will need to help them to cut it out. Older children may be able to cut shapes from thinner cardboard on their own.
Choose the shapes you want to use. It’s a good idea to start with basic shapes like squares, rectangles, circles and triangles as they are easier to cut. Later, you might want to try more complicated shapes like stars, ovals or hexagons.
Use the bottom of a mug or cup to draw your circles.
You can then make your squares, triangles and rectangles to be about the same size. Once you’ve made one of each shape, use it as a template to make more. You’ll need about 4 of each shape.
It takes some time to make the shapes, so you could get younger children to colour or paint (if you’re feeling messy) the shapes as soon as they are cut out.
If you’re painting, you’ll need to leave time for the shapes to dry properly before putting them together.
Once coloured (and dry) each shape needs short slots cutting into it.
The slots need to be about the width of an adult’s finger. The easiest way to make them is by cutting a thin triangle out of the card (like in the picture).
You can choose how many slots you cut in each shape, but a good idea is to count the sides of the shapes and use that as a guide. For example, three slots in a triangle and four in a rectangle. It also means you can talk with your child about shapes and practice counting while you cut.
Time to start building.
Choose two shapes and slot them together. Make sure they are pushed all the way into each other.
Now join more shapes onto these shapes.
Can you do these building challenges?
You could take photos of all the different things you make.
Which shapes balance the best? Which make the best bases for building on?
Which shapes slot together easily? Are there any that you can’t slot together?
What do you need to do to make a taller structure?
What you need:
To make cardboard animals, you need cardboard (a cereal box works well), a pencil or pen, and a pair of scissors. You will need paint, felt tip pens, coloured pencils or crayons if you want to decorate your animals. You can design your own animals, but if you want to try something more complicated there are some good animal templates and sea creature templates to download from the Mr Printables website – scroll halfway down the page to find the download pdf link.
What to do:
What you need:
Cardboard, toilet or kitchen roll inners, scissors, and pens to decorate.
What to do:
What else could you build using this slotting technique?
This is a two step activity and will take about an hour altogether, not including paint drying time.
If you want to paint the shapes, then you will need to create and decorate the shapes first, let the paint dry for an hour or two, and then build with them.
Age 3 and up. Younger children will require an adult to cut out the shapes and slits for them.
You know your children better than anyone, and you should judge whether they’re ready for this activity.
Structural Engineers build structures that are strong and stable – just like you did in this activity. Structural engineers design buildings, bridges, and tunnels. They have to carefully choose the right materials and right shapes to make sure their buildings stay up.
To find out more, and discover additional building activities that you can do at home, visit our Structural Engineer activities page.
We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refuseing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.
If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:
You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.
Privacy Notice and Cookies 2019