What shall we do now?

First of all, cut the sides of the box down to between 12cm and 15cm in size, but remember to keep the pieces that you cut off. They'll come in useful later on. Next, let the children help you paint the box inside and out in a plain colour, such as white or grey, and leave it to dry.

Now the children can use this box to design the interior of a building.

Perhaps they could copy the design of a floor in their own house? Get them to wander around their chosen area, taking measurements in each room, and help them to draw a plan before they begin to create their model. Then the children can follow this plan and use the off-cuts of card to create walls, and stick these in place with glue or sticky tape.

Next, it's time to decorate! They can paint each room in the same colour as its real-life counterpart (or stick on painted 'wallpaper'), adding any pictures on the walls, cutting out doors and matching the patterns of the carpets. Add furniture, too. They could make a bed from an old sponge scourer wrapped in cloth, or paint a stock cube box to look like a TV set.

How creative can you all be in making models of the items you see around you?

Finally, the children could make cardboard cut-outs of their entire family.

Stick these on to 2p coins to enable them to stand up in various places around the house. Can they follow everyone's daily routine by moving the model people from room to room?

Of course, a fun variation on this activity is to invent a completely new building, such as a haunted castle or the deck of a pirate ship. All you have to do is think 'outside the box'!

Tommy Donbavand is a children's entertainer and the author of the books Quick Fixes for Bored Kids, More Quick Fixes for Bored Kids, Boredom Busters, and Quick Fixes for Kids' Parties, all published by HowTo Books.