fair

pictures of pirates and treasure island (the box maze)

Our school fair was on Saturday and our box maze was great!  A constant stream of kids was moving through it all day.  It took them 3 or 4 minutes to get through.  And a few adults had a crack as well. Some kids went through more than 15 times!



Here’s the pirate ship.  It looks so good doesn’t it!





And here’s the entrance and exit (the castles).





And this is what you didn’t see from the outside … It’s not that pretty I know.  In the end I think we used about 60 or so boxes, all refrigerator size, and joined them with cable ties and tidied them up with packing tape.



But here’s the pirate treasure room.  It looked snazzy.  I took photos of the teachers dressed up as pirates to hang on the wall.  And put all the treasure in as well.



And the fairy room. Just for the kids not that in to pirates …

It was quite a spooky experience to supervise the box maze actually, as you could hear the kids moving around, but you didn’t see anyone …

Overall it was a smash hit.  Maybe once I’ve recovered I might even be tempted to think about doing it again next year…

making a cardboard castle



It’s been a bit of a crafty creative week this week.  And it’s all because of our upcoming school fair.  I am helping build a box maze. The box maze is going to look like a castle and start from a cardboard pirate ship.  Just to make it a bit more fun.

Yesterday Wendy and I made the castle entrance and exit.  It turned out to be very easy.  Our supplies … 2 election booths, 1 Stanley knife and 1 can of black spray paint. 

Wendy took on the role of architect (funny about that).  That is to say she cut the turrets and the doors and windows.  And I took on the role of builder … or painter.  Well really all I did was wield my spray paint to make the stones.

So fun.  Maybe I’ll become a graffiti artist … I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, I love black spray paint!

So, they look pretty ace huh?  

We’ve left them in Scarlett’s 1/2 classroom. That’s where the box maze is going to be.  And I am sure the teachers will be able to find a good use for them til the fair.  

They’d make a fun reading corner don’t you think?



pirates and treasure island (we’re building a box maze)

Fairfield Primary School Fair is on Saturday 14 March from 2-7pm (do come along!).  And this year Elise, Wendy and I are building a box maze.  It’s going to be an indoor one and the kids are going to crawl through the boxes.

We saved the election booth boxes that were at school for the recent State Government election.  And we have been diligently dropping in to Harvey Norman Preston twice a week to collect all their fridge boxes, which they are kindly saving for us. The aim is 100 boxes.  

maybe the ship could look something like this one I found on Pinterest

So, the plan at the moment is that the box maze will start on a pirate ship.  The kids will have to walk the plank to the island (this will take them up the ramp to the classroom door).  Then they’ll enter the castle and follow the maze, climbing to the lookout (they’ll be able to look out a window … a crafty trick to entice other children to wonder what they are doing and visit the box maze), before visiting a fairy glen (fun for the little kids) and entering a pirate dungeon (where the treasure is stored of course).  Before popping out at the end via a waterfall (well it will be a slide really …).

some of the pirate treasure … my inherited silverware is going to see the light of day!

Sounds ace huh?  After some intense Pinterest research that you can see here the major technical decisions for construction are:

1. Fridge sized boxes are the go.  We are using large boxes to minimise the joining required.

2. The boxes will be joined primarily with cable ties.  These make the joins sturdy and mean it is simple to dismantle the maze at the end (we’ll just cut the ties).

3.  We will drill the holes for the cable ties. We’ve had a practice and this is a simple process.

I’m getting so excited. Today we started working on the dungeon.  Inspired by this photo below I am now in the process of photographing the teachers to be part of the ‘pirate picture gallery’.  I am asking to take a photo of them dressed up.  Fun!  Then I am going to make some sort of photo display …. a bit like this hopefully.  With the treasure in front!

how cool is this room? i found this image on Pinterest.

I think my kids would like to be part of it too (the display that is) … the practice run pictures are pretty cute huh?