Hill Students Learn, Share Through Cardboard Games

It was a much-anticipated day at Hill Elementary School—their 4th annual Cardboard Challenge. As part of the STEM activity inspired by Global Cardboard Challenge Day, 3rd grade students designed and created arcade-style games, worked in teams to build them out of cardboard shipping boxes, and then set them all up in the Learning Resource Center and invited the whole school to come and play in a Arcade kind of setting. The Cardboard Challenge is a global initiative that gives children an opportunity to collaborate, learn, and build the things they imagine through a simple process called Creative Play, according to the sponsoring organization, Imagination.org.

The project started back in January, when students began collecting supplies and creating an engineering design plan on their game. “Once individual designs were submitted, we put together groups of students based on who had similar ideas,” said 3rd grade teacher Pam Mulligan. “As they worked together, they used critical thinking skills, learned resourcefulness, practiced perseverance, and collaborated with others,” added teacher Liz Thiel. Students were only able to use duct tape, scissors, string, cups and balls and of course the cardboard boxes to construct their games, and realized they had to be flexible.

"It was really fun building the games. I loved figuring out how to make our design become a real game that people could play," said team Plinko Drop student Kayla. “We gave out bookmarks as prizes,” said teammate Bennett, “People seemed to like that.” Team Attack developed an army-style game where soldiers dodged ping-pong ball projectiles. Vivaan, one of the creators said, “See, the ping-pong balls have to get around the barriers, and whichever cup they land in at the bottom determines how many points you get.”

In previous years, the 3rd grade teams carved out time at the end of the project to play each others’ games and invited their kindergarten buddies to come along. This year, they went bigger, and invited the entire school to come play at their “3rd Grade Arcade,” and even sold tickets to raise money for two charities they had researched and voted on: The Oakland County Animal Shelter, and the HAVEN project in Pontiac which supports victims of domestic violence---adding another layer to this already-rich program and process. “It was very clear that time to 'play' all of the games was incredibly important to the students. They were just as excited to show off their own game as they were to play all of the others,” said teacher Kylie Wood. Seeing the money pile up as students bought tickets made the 3rd graders proud to also be doing something to help others. Learning, building, teaching, playing and giving. A winning combination.

The Cardboard Challenge is part of a global initiative that gives children an opportunity to collaborate, learn, and build the things they imagine through a simple process called Creative Play, according to the sponsoring organization, Imagination.org. “Our 3rd graders are so excited for the Challenge, it has become part of what we do here at Hill, and we’ve made changes each year to make it better and more engaging for the students,” concluded Wood. “The Challenge lets students explore their interests and passions while celebrating child creativity where the sky is truly the limit!”

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