Cardboard Challenge 2016

Posted on October 12, 2016 by Lana

Tomorrow is our 4th Cardboard Challenge, the 5th Global Cardboard Challenge, as started by the Imagination Foundation back in 2012. The Global Cardboard Challenge was inspired by the short film Caine’s Arcade.

The Global Cardboard Challenge is a fun, playful and inspiring way to foster creativity in children through a simple process called Creative Play. Through creative play, kids engage their imaginations and open up their minds to what’s possible – and then they turn their ideas into something real. In this process, children learn to develop and test their own ideas, take chances, solve problems, get input from others and become better creative thinkers.

Many people have asked me how we have run the Cardboard Challenge here in Shanghai, so below (and linked here) is a fact sheet, which condenses much of the great information provided by the Imagination Foundation

Cardboard Challenge Fact Sheet

Decide on a date for your Cardboard Challenge, the official date for the Global Cardboard Challenge, this year, was October 1^st 2016; however you can run an event whenever you want; anytime, anyplace.

6 weeks before event:

Advertise event in your community by sharing the following links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faIFNkdq96U original Caine’s Arcade Movie made by Nirvan Mullick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul9c-4dX4Hk movie that shows launch of Global Cardboard Challenge and Imagination Foundation

http://imagination.is/our-projects/cardboard-challenge/ Imagination Foundation Website with full information on Global Cardboard Challenge

4 weeks before event:

Start collecting recycled materials from your community and appoint student leaders to set up an area for materials, and a plan for counting materials.

I found weekly challenges worked best in our school and prizes were awarded each Friday for the class that brought in the most of the following:

Week One: Small boxes, such as medicine packets, toothpaste, chocolate but nothing bigger than a granola box.

Week Two: Medium sized boxes, such as tissue and cereal boxes

Week Three: Tubes, toilet paper, kitchen towel, foil and plastic wrap tubes; these are essential to a successful Cardboard Challenge.

Week Four: Boxes, the bigger, or more unusual, the better. If you can contact any companies in the area ahead of time to ask for donations of any used (or new) bike/fridge/furniture/storage boxes, these will be a huge hit.

Hints for a Successful Cardboard Challenge

Plan Ahead

Where will you store the collected cardboard?
What will happen to the cardboard after the event?
Can children take things home? What about shared projects?
Will you work across classrooms, across grade levels, across divisions?
Do you want to use paint… for some grade levels? All grade levels?
Get Parents involved; the younger grades especially will need help with cutting and gluing.
Make sure you have enough materials, not just cardboard, but things to cut/glue/paint/stick things together with. Where will these things be stored? Who will have access to them?

And so it begins…

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Lana

There was movement in the hallway for the word had passed around, that the Cardboard Challenge had got underway…

Well, we have over 2,000 individual small cardboard items brought in by Prek-5th grade so far and the hallways are buzzing with the sound of ” who is winning?”

The truth is, we are all winners when our administration allows our children a full day of play, and these two weeks of our cardboard collection competition are just that, a chance to collect the cardboard, providing the incentive of a few little prizes for the kids who bring in the most. We are all really looking forward to October 9th, when we celebrate the imagination of our children who were so impressed when they learned about Caine’s Arcade and the Imagination Foundation.

Don’t forget to keep your eyes open for interesting cardboard over October Break, and have a wonderful, safe holiday.

Magnificent Movie of Cardboard Challenge SAS 2014

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Lana

“Cardboard Challenge was awesome because it taught us teamwork and engineering” Michelle

“I liked the idea of cleaning up too because it made us more responsible” Daniel

“I really liked the teamwork” Vincent

“I liked destroying the boxes afterwards as it felt great on my feet” Zach

“I liked that all the grades did cardboard challenge” Elena

“You got to expand your imagination and think deeper than what you normally do” Malu

“It was a fun way of letting your imagination run wild” Kaitlyn D

“Playing with cardboard and your friends was great” Linh

“Working with friends was so cool for cardboard challenge and even when we argued, we still worked things out and had fun” Celine

“I was sad when it was over, can we do it two times a year?” Gracie

“We built a house with awesome features, including a door” Ludwig

“Getting to make anything you wanted was amazing” Chris L

“Cardboard challenge was fun because I tried my best and built so much” Fatime

“Building a lot of games was awesome and so much fun” Kaitlyn F

“The best thing about CC day was being able to create and build anything you want” Sean

“Cardboard challenge was awesome because we could build what we wanted to, and then the best thing was getting to play with it and show it to our friends” Max C

“Building things is so much fun, especially when you build them with your friends” Cleo

“We got to use our imagination to have fun, we thought of ideas and built our own projects” Han Rei

“Cardboard challenge was awesome because we made a blind bowling station and working with my friends was great” Rebecca

“Making things was so much fun, and then destroying them afterwards was cool too” Ali

Wow, thanks so much Davey Neill, a 5th grade homeroom teacher who took the time to video all of our activities on September 27th at Shanghai American School Pudong Campus.

http://videonew.saschina.org/player/pak_player/pakplayer.swf?config=http%3A%2F%2Fvideonew.saschina.org%2Fplayer%2Fpak_player%2Fembed_player.php%3Fvid%3D9402%26json%3Dtrue%26autoplay%3Dno

Winners are Grinners

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Lana

A big, huge, wonderful, enormous, gigantic CONGRATULATIONS to 3ED for bringing in 89 toilet rolls last week to contribute to our Cardboard Challenge mini-challenge! Runners up were KEV and 2KH and the most exciting thing for me was just how many different classes we had in the top three each day… it really was a whole ES effort and the total of over 600 toilet rolls will surely add to our fun on September 26th when we imagine, create and build with all of our cardboard goodies.

This weeks mini-challenge is for students to bring in as many empty granola boxes and empty toothpaste boxes as they can. Students should also be thinking about our final challenge next week, September 15th-19th, which is to bring in shoe boxes and cereal boxes, but for now, keep those, and any other cool cardboard items you’re collecting, AT HOME please. Details of these challenges were written about here, complete with more images.

Toothpaste box

Granola Bar box

Remember you can read more about the Global Cardboard Challenge here, and be sure to check out the boy who started it all, Caine, as you watch one of the Caine’s Arcade videos on youtube… (you’ll need a vpn)

18 more sleeps…

Important Student Update

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Lana

Thanks for a fun week Elementary Students, your enthusiasm and excitement about the Cardboard Challenge is infectious. Sharing videos and ideas with you and seeing your reactions is one of the reasons I love my job so much. I know that with YOUR commitment to creativity, fun and using your imagination, next Friday will be a big success. Here is one of the amazing creations made in the 2012 Global Cardboard Challenge… what a cool looking car! There is NOTHING stopping you from creating something this wonderful students, you are only limited by your imagination…

Here is a great list of some facts and figures about the Global Cardboard Challenge and Caine’s Arcade and this is a link to many of the videos that were made during last years challenge…(you’ll need a VPN to watch these) or you can come by the library and see them on the t.v.

This is a list of the other countries participating so far… help spread the word, tell your friends… we are the ONLY people in China participating right now.

Some of you asked me why we are doing the Global Cardboard Challenge, and then we talked about Caine’s Arcade, which started it all, and Nirvan, and The Imagination Foundation… but then I found this graphic which really sums up why we are getting creative with cardboard on Friday September 27th.

…that sums it up nicely don’t you think?

So don’t forget to collect cardboard, foil, wrapping paper, string, recyclable materials and LOTS OF COOL STUFF to make our day a big success.

Get challenged this September

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Lana

On September 27th, our Elementary School will be taking part in the Imagination Foundation’s Global Cardboard Challenge. The GCC began after a man named Nirvan entered Caine’s Arcade on 28th of September 2011, and went on to make a film about Caine, that quickly went viral.

Here is the story of that day…

http://videonew.saschina.org/player/pak_player/pakplayer.swf?config=http%3A%2F%2Fvideonew.saschina.org%2Fplayer%2Fpak_player%2Fembed_player.php%3Fvid%3D4656%26json%3Dtrue%26autoplay%3Dno

The Imagination Foundation is a non-profit group with a mission to find, foster, and fund creativity and entrepreneurship in children. As a means of launching the Imagination Foundation, Nirvan arranged the Global Cardboard Challenge, to encourage creativity with cardboard, and arranged over 270 events across 41 countries, including one at Caine’s Arcade.

Check out this one minute clip of all the great things you can do with a cardboard box!

http://videonew.saschina.org/player/pak_player/pakplayer.swf?config=http%3A%2F%2Fvideonew.saschina.org%2Fplayer%2Fpak_player%2Fembed_player.php%3Fvid%3D4617%26json%3Dtrue%26autoplay%3Dno

This year, the Imagination Foundation aims to involve over 70 countries and one million people.

Resources for Inspiration

Pinterest Page full of images from the Global Cardboard Challenge
http://pinterest.com/imaginationfdn/global-cardboard-challenge-resources-for-educators/

All of the videos playing in the library have come from this page
http://www.imagination.is/gcc_videos

A great page fostering creativity and imagination
https://mymakedo.com/cardboard-challenge

the barefoot librarian

Kimbra Power

Tag Archives: caine’s arcade