Earth Day
So this was not quite what I imagined in my perfectly optimistic head, but my son liked it, after doing it we were reading a book that had trees in it and he said “Look mama, T for Tree!” I wanted to make it from mostly recycled materials, to stick with the Earth Day theme we will be doing all week. Below I have linked a reader submitted spring tree craft that would be a great add on to this activity!
- Gather your materials. You will need a cardboard egg carton, green and brown paint, glue, scissors, a marker and a large piece of construction paper.
- Start by drawing a large T on your paper.
- Cut a long piece of the cardboard off the top of the egg carton for the trunk.
- Paint the trunk brown
- Paint the bottom of the egg carton green, for older kids I would cut them before painting, but little guys need to have a larger object to paint.
- Let the paint dry.
- When the paint is dry enough to handle cut the egg carton into “Leaves” aka smaller pieces.
- grab the glue and add glue to the bottom of the T
- Add the painted trunk
- Add glue to the top
- Add the egg carton leaves.
- Let dry.
“Up , Up, Down” by Robert Munsch is a cute and funny story about a little girl who climbs and climbs and falls and falls! She decides to climb to the very top of the tree. This time she doesn’t fall and doesn’t come down until it’s time to lecture her parents withe their own words. Kids love this book, it’s silly , it’s about climbing and has giant band aids in it, what kid wouldn’t love it?
Sent In By You
Isn’t this beautiful?
Bring a little of the outdoors in , and reuse bubble wrap with this adorable spring bud craft !
Pop over to The Entertaining House for the full how to.
We make art with recycled things all the time here at No Time For Flash Cards, I’d like to say it’s all out of concern for the environment but often it’s just because it’s what is available, we eat an insane amount of cereal and need to do something with all the boxes! Here are some of the crafts we have done using recycled materials. Click on the craft title to link to the original post with full how to instructions.
- Gather your materials. You will need some cereal boxes, and smaller boxes ( like mac and cheese, or cracker boxes), scissors, markers, and tape. You will need a box and a half for each building. Don’t forget your recycling truck!
- Start by talking with your child and deciding what to draw, I drew our buildings but if your child wants to , go for it! My son decided on a church, fire station and the aquarium. Make as many or as few buildings as you wish.
- Open up the cereal boxes and draw inside.
- Have your child color the buildings if you drew them.
- While they color, draw some roadway.
- Hand them the road way when they are done with the buildings and let them at it !
- Cut out the buildings and roadway.
- Tape store fronts to the full boxes.
- PLAY!
Song!
My Backyard!
Don’t throw your junk in my backyard,
my backyard,
my backyard ,
Don’t throw your junk in my backyard,
my back yard’s full!
Rocks and trees and butterflies
butterflies,
butterflies,
Rocks and trees and butterflies
Dirt and leaves and bugs!’
Don’t throw your junk in my backyard,
my backyard,
my backyard,
Don’t throw your junk in my backyard ,
my backyard’s full!
” The Whole Green World” by Tony Johnston is a celebration of the Earth and it’s beauty. The text is short enough to hold young children’s attention and the illustrations by Elisa Kleven are bright and so detailed you will fall in love! I think it’s important to teach our children to see the beauty of the Earth, especially when we are teaching them to conserve it!
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- Gather your materials. You will need many crayons of various colors, something to melt the crayons in ( I use aluminum cup liners in a ratty old cake pan- the wax does leak through some times) , some popsicle sticks for stirring, a recycled jar and a candle wick.
- Start by setting your oven to 220-265 I am impatient and melt them at 265 but many people have said that that is too hot and they had smoking, so my suggestion is to start low and adjust accordingly.
- Peel the paper off the crayons and break into small pieces. I used 7-10 crayons of each color for my candle.
- Melt.
- Put the wick in the jar and hold onto it as you pour the melted crayon into the jar.
If I had had a longer wick I would have wrapped it around a popsicle stick and laid the stick across the jar to keep it in place.
- Let the wax set before adding the next color.
- This is what happened when I didn’t wait long enough.
- Keep adding and letting the color set.
- Trim the wick when all colors are added and set.
