3 Recreational Ways to Use Old Cardboard Outside This Winter

We all know how useful cardboard is throughout the year. You use it to store things away. You use it to move items from one house to another. You use it for crafts with the kids. These all seem to be ways that boxes are used “positively” or as they were intended to be used when you first obtained them.

But what about uses you hadn’t thought of? What about recreational uses for cardboard boxes you have lying around? What about uses that will ultimately destroy your old boxes?

Well, here’s a fun list of ways you can put your old, tattered boxes to use this winter and not mind them getting destroyed in the process. It’s all in the name of fun anyway, right?

Target practice

Whether you have a license to own your own guns or are simply taking your kids out to shoot at targets with their paintball guns or BB guns, cardboard boxes make absolutely wonderful targets for all of the above. Not only does the material show where you shot quite nicely; it also is a great medium to paint a target on to improve your accuracy. Just tie or stake flat pieces of cardboard to a hay or straw bale and you’re good to go.

Makeshift sled

Alright. This may be a bit on the outlandish side, but if a snowstorm has struck and you don’t currently have any sleds, riding down a hill on a piece of cardboard would work for an hour or two before it started to break down. It’s slick enough to skate along the packed snow. If you don’t want your kids riding pans or trash can lids down the hill like old movies show, why not attempt a cardboard sled?

Fort fortifiers

Another far fetched use of cardboard here. A lot of the time when you or your kids are building a snow fort, the walls don’t stand up as well as you planned. By shaping the snow around cardboard flats, you can provide your fort with some sort of structure to adhere to. Alternatively, you could put cardboard down on the inside as flooring if the ground is too hard.

Don’t throw away that cardboard that looks too old for further use. Until it rips apart completely or ends up as a sopping mess, cardboard can be used for anything. Suck it up and break it out later for the kids’ sake if you have to.