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Garbage Truck Craft

Want to make a garbage truck craft today? Of course, you do. These simple shape activities and crafts have been a favorite of my son for a while now, so it was only fitting to match it up with his other favorite thing- a garbage truck. I don’t know about your child, but my son is nuts about these wonders of public sanitation. Luckily if we sleep in on garbage day, there are hundreds of garbage truck videos on youtube. Did you know that garbage trucks in Japan play music? I know because I have seen them on youtube many many times! If you are making this garbage truck craft in a class, try it at free choice. Put out all different shapes made from construction paper or cereal boxes if you have enough, and let them create!

garbage truck craft

Easy Garbage Truck Craft

  1. Gather your materials. You will need some plain construction paper or cardboard ( such as a cereal box), some green markers or paint, some black and brown construction paper, scissors, and glue.garbage truck craft
  2. Draw one large square, one small square and an obtuse triangle on your cardboard.garbage truck craft
  3. Have your child color or paint the shapes green, point out the shapes, and label them for your child. Try to avoid quizzing them, instead make it natural like ” Look we have a square, rectangle, and triangle, do you think we can turn them into a garbage truck? We used markers because we were taking a break from paint-eating.
  4. While they are coloring the shapes, cut out three large  circles.
  5. Cut out the truck shapes
  6. Grab the brown piece of construction paper and the glue!
  7. Add the large square, small one, and triangle, so the triangle is only touching at the top.garbage truck craft
  8. Now the next step for this garbage truck craft is to add the glue for the wheels- you can add the glue as a guide for your child.garbage truck craft for kids
  9. Pop the wheels on and let them dry.

Garbage Truck Books For Kids

Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha is my favorite garbage truck book, and yes, I have read a lot. Mr. Gilly is a hard-working garbage man with one task, to clean up Trashy Town. The text is so melodic I find myself singing while reading ” Dump it in, Smash it down, drive around the trashy town” . It’s not all trashy time for Mr. Gilly though. After a hard day’s work cleaning up Trashy Town he gets into his bubble bath! My son loves that this big garbage collector has a bath just like him. A super sweet and colorful book that explains garbage collection in a nice way.

” I Stink” by Kate and Jim McMullen was the bain of my existence in my Pre-K class. The kids loved this book and I really liked most of it, but there are some gross things in it, like puppy poo, dirty diapers, and kitty litter but we put all those things in the garbage so they are totally appropriate. Just know that they will also get a group of 4 and 5-year-olds giggling and repeating the words for days on end. Overall though, the book is effective, and I own a well-read copy. The garbage truck is sarcastic and rough, and the alphabet of garbage is creative.


“I Am A Garbage Truck” by Ace Landers is my son’s favorite toy right now. He kisses it good night, and it’s the first thing he asks for when he gets up in the morning. The book itself is okay, the story is a little disjointed. When my husband read it to him for the first time he looked over at me in my son’s bed and said, ” Am I reading this the right way? It seems like I should have started from the last page?” my son didn’t care, he loves the illustrations and the way the book is in the shape of a garbage truck. I like that it covers both garbage and recycling!

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