Magical Mystery Machine

Materials:

• Boxes
• recycled household materials
• magazines and other photo sources
• art supplies
• tape and nontoxic glue
• Video camera (optional)

As this activity will prove, imagination is the real mother of invention.

Gather up an assortment of art supplies, odds and ends, lids, spools, foil, and shoeboxes and have your child build an imaginary machine (one that turns spinach into ice cream, sounds an alarm when baby brother enters the room, or polishes the cat's claws). Your child can start with a plain shoebox and add plastic lids and paper arrows for dials, cardboard tubes for feeding in "raw material," and yarn for "drive belts." Encourage the inventor to decide on a purpose for every piece he or she puts on the machine. Suggest decorating the devices with tempera paint, markers, recycled foil, and pictures cut out of magazines, junk mail, catalogs, and so on.

Later, say after dinner, have your child make a presentation to the rest of the family, explaining in detail what the gadget does and how it works. (This will be great to catch on videotape, if you can.)

Just one question: Does the cat get to pick which color claw polish she wants?

More on: Imagination Play

Excerpted from:

© 2005 by Steve and Ruth Bennett. Excerpted from 365 Unplugged Family Fun Activities with permission of its publisher, Perseus Books Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

To order this book visit perseusbooksgroup.com.