Teaching Kids About Recycling

With Earth Day around the corner & trying to make our house more “green” I wanted to teach Maggie about recycling (or at least start to). We’ve been talking about reusing things instead of always throwing them in the trash. I let Maggie help me decide which things go in the trash & which go into our recycling bin. We also took some books out at the library. Maggie’s favorite is: The Berenstain Bear Go Green. I decided the easiest thing to do to actually reuse our trash, was to use some of our recyclables for craft projects. You can see what we’ve been creating below. 

A really fun part of our “learning recycling” has been these great shoes from Lil’fut and Company. These adorable moccasins are hand-made from the softest leather and the soles are repurposed airplane tires! They are eco-friendly and come in many colors. 

When I gave Maggie & Alex the shoes, I explained that part of the shoe, the sole, is made from something recycled. Now Maggie is convinced that these shoes make her & Alex run as fast as airplanes, since they are wearing airplane tires! The shoes fit so well & are really soft. Our readers can shop Lil’Fut and Company at 20% off using code: Lilfutgreen

You can also enter to win a pair in our Giant Earth Conscious Giveaway!

Now for some details on our recycling crafts: 

Recycled Dolls

This was Maggie’s favorite & she really plays with them as dolls. We have plans to make more dolls out of other shampoo & soap bottles! 

Vase:

Method disinfectant wipes container

Paint, ribbon & flowers

Robot Costume:

We get a lot of boxes from Soap.com, Diapers.com & Vine.com. We always try to do fun things with them. They have been made into a ball pit, they were where our baby chicks lived for a week & now we’ve made a costume out of them! This robot costume is 2 small Soap.com boxes stacked. I cut holes for Maggie’s arms & for her face. Then we use pipe cleaners for antennas. Maggie had a lot of fun with this!

Mini Vase:

Drinkable yogurt bottle

Ribbon, old craft sticks, flowers made from paper

Recycled Monster:

Empty bottle of laundry detergent

Various bottle caps & baby food pouch caps

Paint & random craft supplies

What have you made out of recyclables? Do you have any repurposed favorites? Do you have any tips for teaching kids about recycling? We’d love to hear!