recycling Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Care to Recycle Flower Craft for Kids

April 14, 2016 By Deirdre

Painting with the tops, bottoms and sides of objects creates a totally different print on paper. We were asked to participate in the Care to Recycle® program sponsored by Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. It gave us an opportunity to trying painting with some of their cool shaped bottles and make a recycled flower craft for kids.

I was hoping create fun and funky flowers using the tops, bottoms, sides and lids. I was also hoping they would look like the flowers found in the book The Tiny Seedby Eric Carle. It would give us a chance to think our recycling habits when it comes to bathroom related objects like bottles and boxes. It would also give us a fun spring craft to do.

We had three small bottles to work with. The products were the JOHNSON’S® baby HEAD-TO-TOE® wash, JOHNSON’S® baby lotion, and JOHNSON’S® baby powder. Two of the bottles were similar in shape, but had different textures. The powder bottle was very different from the other two and was our favorite to paint with.

Creating Recycled Flowers Craft for Kids

The bottom of the lotion and wash bottles was perfect for creating petals around the yellow center we had made with the top of the powder bottle.

One of the bottle tops was rolled in paint and than rolled on the inside of the petals. It gave texture and a fun contrast to the bottle bottle print. It was also really messy!

After rolling on yellow paint with the second lid onto some of the petals, the side of one of the bottles are used to create the flower stem.

Thoughts on Recycling

After painting gorgeous and yes funky flowers, we were able to clean off the bottles and recycle them. JDaniel has been big into recycling since he was little. Like many of your children recycling isn’t just a chore we try to do on trash day. If you haven’t started recycling with your kids, this could be a teachable moment that could be long lasting.

There are probably a number of items in our bathrooms we can recycle. I am thinking about putting an extra trash bin in our bathrooms just for recycling. It would help our whole family remember to recycle. Care to Recycle® even has a website I can visit to find out what bathroom products can and cannot be recycled. You can too. The more we know about what can be recycled the more I think we will do it.

You will find more craft for kids ideas on my Pinterest boards. Recently I wrote a post for Pre-K Pages on painting with fun objects from A to Z. Many of the objects had been recycled. We had the best time coming up with an object for each letter and then painting with it.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

STEM Engineering- Bridge Building

October 28, 2015 By Deirdre

JDaniel loves to build so; recently took him aside and posed a building question to him. I asked him how we can get some farm animals across a busy road. His answer was that we needed to build a bridge.

I gathered together some toys and some build materials that we could use to build the bridge.

What was gathered?

Small potato chip containers
Paper clips
Hole punch
Strips of cardboard
Train track
Plastic farm animals
Toy cars

How we put the bridge together:

Two holes were punched in each potato chip container. One hole close to the rim of the container and one beneath the first hole.
Holes were punched into the cardboard strips. Two near the front of the strip. One hole was placed on the right and one on the left. Two holes were placed in the back of each strip one on each side.
The end of a paperclip was threaded through the holes in each of the cans.
The end of a paperclip was threaded through the holes in each of the cardboard strips.

STEM Engineering Project Bridge Building Questions

How many paper clips need to be added to the ones hanging from the cans before connecting them to the cardboard strip?
How far apart do the cans need from the bridge to keep them flat on the ground?
How many animals can fit on each of the cardboard strips while keeping the cans flat?
What amount of space needs to between each animal?
Which bridge is the easiest for the animals to cross?
Do you need to add more paperclips to the narrowest cardboard bridge?

You don’t have to explore each of these questions. You can just pick one or two. As my son was building, I posed these questions organically. Each of these could be the essential question for the STEM Engineering project.

We did a lot of higher level thinking in this engineering project. We found that the bridge needs to be able to swing for it to work well with animals traveling on it.

It was such fun to build a variety of bridges and see which worked best. After completing our investigation, I placed all the building supplies in a basket in my son’s room. I was thrilled to later see him exploring more ways to build bridge with the materials when I peeked in his room.

Here are some other fun experiments we have done:

Blowing Up a Balloon on a Bottle

How to Make Things Sink

How to Make Water Flow

If you try this STEM engineering project, please share a picture of your bridge with me on my Facebook page.

Easter Game- Egg Toss Bottles

March 14, 2014 By Deirdre

This is a sponsored post.

JDaniel and I had the opportunity to go to JoAnn’s Fabrics and Crafts to hunt for treasures. We searched up and down every aisle and found way too many amazing things. I was just looking for the material needed to make an Easter Game with Egg Toss Bottles . JDaniel wanted to see what they had beyond my supply list. He loved the giant foam mattresses that seemed to reach the ceiling. The holiday related supplies also called to him. It was just as hard for me to focus on my supply list.

We eventually ended up looking through the array of washi tape to find designs that looked like Easter. It took quite a while to decide with designs. There were so many great choices. Deciding on what colors were really the most Easter like really helped.

The next item on my list was plastic Easter eggs. I thought it would be really easy to decide which ones to take home. JDaniel loved the giant eggs, but it was decided that they wouldn’t fit inside the plastic juice bottles that we were going to use to catch the eggs. Maybe the Easter bunny will have to sneak back to JoAnn’s and get him one of those.

It was hard to leave our time of window shopping, but beautiful warm sun was calling to JDaniel to come play in it. I was excited about heading home to put together the egg toss catchers.

While JDaniel played in our backyard, I sat in a folding chair and removed the bottom area of both juice bottles. When that was done, I started wrapping the washi tape around the juice bottles. The bottles were a little challenging to wrap. They had a lot of ridges and curves. I have never crafted with washi tape before and was surprised by how easy it was to pull up and move on the bottle when it looked a little wonky (not straight) to me. It is now my favorite kind of tape!

When the egg toss catchers were done, I asked JDaniel to play catch with me. It turns out that I am not very good at catching eggs being tossed at me. Thank goodness we used plastic eggs.

If you would like to find the washi tape or tie dyed eggs we used for this Easter game or egg toss activity or craft supplies for a wonderful idea of your own , you need to visit JoAnn’s Fabrics and Craft.

Disclaimer: I was sent a gift card to buy the materials to complete this craft ideas.

Gnome or Fairy Home – Read.Explore.Learn.

July 5, 2013 By Deirdre

The Fairy Ball (Bella)is a book we read a long time about about a little rabbit that finds her way to fairy ball. JDaniel and I really enjoy reading about how Bella ended up a the ball in search of chain of flowers she had made that disappeared and headed off to find it. Recently we came across a fairy house in the garden in front of a B and B my in-laws stayed in when they were in town. Seeing that beautiful house inspired us to look at the book The Fairy Ball again. Afterwards I thought it would be fun for us to build a fairy home of our own. JDaniel thought fairies were okay, but a home for gnome might be better.

We gathered a bunch of items out of our recycling bin and headed to an area of our yard that contains some pretty flowers. A gnome or fairy would want a pretty place to live.

What items did we take from the recycling bin?

plastic berry box
beverage carrier
paper towel tube
plastic candy tray
plastic peanut jar
assorted plastic lids
cardboard candy box

Then I pulled some weeds that been growing like crazy around the flowers due to days of rain out of the ground. We decided some of the weeds would be great for decorating the gnome or fairy home.

Building a Gnome Home -Recycled Materials Activity

With all our supplies gathered we got started.

Building the Gnome or Fairy Home

We started with the gnome or fairy home structure. An old candy box was decided on as the floor and wall of the home. The candy tray would be various rooms for the gnome or fairies.

An old beverage tray became the roof. We tried the carrier right side up and upside down. It was decided upside down would be the best. The cup holders kind of looked like skylights.

The paper towel holder was placed behind the gnome house. It looked like a chimney to us. Every house needs a chimney I was told.

A plastic berry container was the gnomes side porch. Our house has a front porch, but the gnomes apparently prefer having one on the side.

The old peanut jar was a garage from the gnome mobile. I guess even gnomes like to keep their cars dry in the rain. The peanut jar’s lid was used at the gnome home’s front door.

The bottle lids were used to create stepping stones for the gnomes. I guess they like hopping from stone to stone as they head into their home.

The weeds were woven into the drink carrier and placed on the garage. Some dandelions were placed in the gnome or fairy rooms as decorations. There were a few weeds place in the doorway and the jar lid was then replaced at the home’s entrance.

It is amazing how such simple things made a wonderful gnome or fairy home.

How did you explore books this week? If you have a post you would like to share, please link it up below. Once you have added your post, please visit at least three others.