My kids couldn’t wait to join the 175,000 children who signed up to be Earth Rangers. They love doing challenges to plant flowers for bees, plant a tree or find ways to lower your carbon footprint. With Earth Day approaching they wanted to do Earth Day activities, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy supplies to do arts and crafts with them for Earth Day… that defeats the purpose.
Growing up in a very small town with few stores, you always find someone who needs anything you have rather than throwing it out. It also means you re-use everything you possibly can because few stores means few places you can buy things, including no dollar store. This was how I grew up and we had tons of fun. Now recycling and caring about the earth has become the cool thing to do, and what better time to do it than Earth Day.
Not to mention this years Earth Day campaign is to ‘End Plastic Pollution’. So rather than throwing things out we can reuse them!
After looking at what we had in our recycling bin, here are some activities we did. (To check out our Earth Week STEM Activities post).
Pop Tab Bracelets
First place I went to was our recycling bin. I found a HUGE bag of soda can tabs that my father had given my kids for their school who was collecting them. I say was, because when my kids brought them in they were told they no longer collected them. So I went online searching for ideas and found Red Ted Art post with a quick and super easy 5 minute video showing how to make ‘pull tab bracelets’.
We were a little intimidated at first. We thought for sure it couldn’t be as easy as they make it look… but IT WAS! For younger kids it helps to have safety pins in the ends of the ribbon, but it really only took a few minutes to make. It was so easy my daughter started making them for her teachers.
Homemade Bubble Blowers
Although our Spring is more like Winter, this is a great fun activity from Hello Wonderful. All you need is a plastic water bottle, mesh from fruit like avocado and some bubbles. This will bring hours of fun. If your up for the challenge they also have a great recipe to make your own bubbles.
Recycled Play ideas
Have a full recycling bin? Little Bins for Little Hands has a ton of ways you can use them to make toys and games.
Recycle Crayons (free printable)
Have lots of broken crayons laying around? Today’s Creative Life has a great idea how you can use them to be environmentally responsible and reduce, reuse and recycle! Once you create new crayons they also share a free printable that makes them perfect for giving to teachers, friends or family.
For more Earth Day ideas check out our Earth Day Stem Activities post here.
