We’ve been talking and reading (see yesterday’s bonus blog post) a lot about Earth Day this month! We’ve discussed the various ways that people can help take better care of our planet, and the things that we do on a daily basis to contribute – like recycling. Our little nugget absolutely loves checking various products for that all-important recycle triangle. One morning, as she was feeding our dogs, she glanced over at all of the goodies stacked up in our recycling bin, and immediately ran over to ask if we could use the materials to build a big castle. Making a recycled art project was not on my list of things to do that day, but she was so darn excited…I just couldn’t say no.
In all honesty, some of our best projects are the result of unplanned, spur-of-the-moment ideas! And we had an absolute blast building this recycled castle together. Our daughter’s enthusiasm was incredibly contagious. π
While I rinsed and dried various plastic containers, I asked our little nugget to draw up a quick blueprint of her castle – so that we could use it as a reference during construction. She ran off…returning five minutes later with a piece of colorful notebook paper, and a giant smile on her face!
She proudly detailed the various parts of her drawing…making sure to point out the beautiful butterfly that she placed near the top of her castle. Once we had reviewed the design, I placed all of our recycled materials on the table. Our daughter immediately jumped up and grabbed a purple lid (from a grape jelly jar) and declared it the infamous butterfly from her building design. Now, it was time to construct the rest of the castle, so that the butterfly (i.e. purple lid) had a place to call home.
Building with Recycled Materials
Supplies:
- Recycled Materials (of all shapes and sizes)
- You can use absolutely anything in your recycle bin…we used the following:
- Large lettuce container
- Yogurt containers (large and small)
- Square container (that previously housed our cherry tomatoes)
- Cardboard tubes (empty toilet paper or paper towel rolls)
- Cardboard boxes
- Salad dressing bottle cap
- Metal lids
- You can use absolutely anything in your recycle bin…we used the following:
- Hot Glue Gun
- Kwik Stix Tempera Paint Sticks (optional)
Instructions:
- First things first…if any of the recyclables that you’ve decided to use are harboring any leftover food particles, make sure to rinse them out! You don’t want mold growing inside your beautiful recycled building.
- Lay out all of the materials that you plan to use during construction, so that you can see everything that you have to work with. Feel free to have your little ones draft a quick blueprint, or rough sketch, of what they want their building to look like.
- Working together, start constructing with the recycled materials – without the glue, for now. You just want to get a general idea of where everything will go, before officially gluing every item into place.
- Once you have a good feel for where everything will go, it’s time to bring the building to life. Grab your hot glue gun and commence construction! Note: Hot glue guns get very hot and should be used by an adult, or with adult supervision.Β
- Once construction is complete, go ahead and jump right into the next phase…decorating! We decided to use our favorite Kwik Stix tempera paint sticks, but you could also use markers, crayons, paint, etc.
- Once you’re finished decorating, construction is complete! Feel free to host a small ribbon-cutting ceremony, before inviting some of your small figurines (or animal friends) inside to take a peek. π
Building construction is usually a very serious business…but there was a whole lot of laughter happening during our recycled art project. At one point, our little nugget decided to dress up in some of the recycled materials…which resulted in a fit of giggles! π
Once our project was complete, I asked our daughter if she knew who lived in this special castle. “Yes!” she said. “Ariel, Prince Eric…and ME!”
Earth Day may be over, but everyday is a great day to build with recycled materials! I’m sure our construction zone will be bustling again very soon! π
