Mini Tape Town
Suggested age for this project: Age 3 and above
Overview
With this project, we use colorful BAM! Tape masking tape to make roads and cities on our floors and walls. How fun is that? This is a great activity for busy little people. If you have several children, you can have each child create their own street or neighborhood. Also, you can have each child be responsible for certain aspects of the city. Think builder, road engineer, landscaper, or even planning and zoning! Once the city is built, then get out the cars and people and make it come alive. This is a great activity to encourage creativity, organization and cooperative play. Additionally, this fun project works those fine motor skills. If you have a rainy day to fill, this activity is sure to please. My trio spent hours putting their small town together.
Materials
- Colored Masking Tape
- Small cars and people
- Flat surface to tape on (Test an inconspicuous area to be sure your surface is suitable for adhesive tape. Be sure to use easy to remove masking tape that is not tacky. Don’t even try this with duct tape. BAM! Tape™ masking tape is perfect for this.)
Let's Make It!
Step 1: Design the town
After you have a location picked out, sit down with your builders and get a general plan together. Make sure that everyone has a job with this project. My son Boaz was the planner. He came up with the general layout of the town and the types of buildings. He and Noah then took on the role of builders, I helped layout roads and Siena came in with the details. Once you have a general plan, then it is time to put in some roads!
Step 2: Build the roads
I like to start with the roads, because this defines the other spaces and helps our builders with organization. We selected one color for our roads, came up with a size that fit our cars, and then used long strips of tape to create the lanes. Noah added yellow stripes in the middle of the roads.
Step 3: Add Some Buildings
Next we added our building structures. My builders decided that they wanted a neighborhood, a hospital, some shops and a park. I remind them to be creative and then set them loose with lots of rolls of colorful BAM! Tape™ masking tape. They used both the 1 inch and 1/4 inch wide tape. This is where I snuck away and made dinner!
Step 4: Check For Details
Once you have your buildings in place, have the town architects step back and take a look at the town. Is there anything missing? Should the town have trees? Water? This is a great time to talk about what makes a town a good place to live and the responsibilities involved with planning and building. Yup, I snuck in a little civics lesson! Our town has a hospital, trees, and a pond with a walking path. Boaz pointed out that we lack law enforcement and gasoline. We’re doomed!
Step 5: Now It's Time to Play!
Bring in the cars and the people. You can even add blocks to make tunnels.
Wrap Up
Now that you have managed to build a town, teach a civics lesson, put a smile on some little faces and cook dinner, I’m sure that you are ready to plan your next Mini Tape town. The beauty of this project is the versatility. You can tape buildings on walls, add railroads, tape up and over “mountains” of furniture. Add 3D tape sculptures. I am certain that your builder’s creativity will increase with each time that you do this project. As far a clean up, just peel up your BAM! Tape™ and you have a clean slate. Do not leave the tape stuck to the floor for more than a couple days, and the less foot traffic on it, the better. If you do end up with some tape residue, then check your surface for a safe cleaner such as glass cleaner or a little dish soap. A blow dryer is handy for removing stubborn tape as well. I put our Tape town on travertine and found no residue three days later. I sure hope that you and your builders had fun with this project!