It has dawned on my husband and me that construction paper can be used for making just about everything (as far as a four year old with a good imagination is concerned). Several months back, child number one was adamant that she wanted to paint (before we had any in the house). To calm her down, I created a palette of paints and a paintbrush out of construction paper. She played with it for days.
However, that incident opened her eyes to the possibilities. We have made many things out of construction paper since then. An arrow, a badmitton set, a road construction cone, and red toe shoes are some of the more interesting items. Of course there are obvious drawbacks. Paper doesn't last long. A few minutes in child number two's clutches and the toy is no longer recognizable. The toe shoes lasted only about 15-30 minutes from normal wear and tear.
From the parent's point of view other problems come up. There is the need for parental assistance to make these wonderful objects of play and then the storage issue when child number one wants to treasure them forever. Needless to say, the destroyed toys are thrown out for obvious reasons. Child number one has not figured out yet that these fragile toys disappear when she stops playing with them. Eventually, I think I need to teach her to thin out her belongings from time to time. For now, this is the less painful way. She has a lot of her daddy in her, and he hates to get rid of things.
On the whole, one package of construction paper is worth a lot more than its purchase price for the hours of entertainment it provides. It ranks up there with large appliance boxes. And, we haven't even introduced paper airplanes yet.
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