Table Top Recycling Center
Garbage and recycling and their respective trucks are big hits at our house, as is Duplo. So I mixed the two together for a fun color sorting activity that went on and on! The simplest things are usually the best. Activities like this mix imaginative play, color recognition, and counting and will appeal to a wide range of ages. You can change up the theme to fit your child’s particular interests too!
- Gather your materials. You will need some craft paper ( or use the underside of wrapping paper), markers, painters tape, and some multi-colored blocks or toys to sort.
- Tape your paper to a table, add a title! As kids get interested in spelling, make sure you spell out loud when adding things like titles to crafts and activities.
- Draw a conveyor belt – every sorting center needs one!
- Draw bins for the recyclables ( each color). I asked my son what colors we needed, he looked in the bin of Duplo and as he called them out I drew the bins.
- Start sorting!
- Play, we grabbed a recycling truck for added oomph! Count how many blocks are in each bin, find out which bin has the most, which has the least … there is a lot of learning hidden in this game.
- We even came back after lunch for some more fun!
Books
I Am A Garbage Truck
A Day in the Life of a Garbage Collector 
Trash And Recycling 
Jenilee says
LOVe this idea!! I might have to give this a try. 🙂
Becoming LDS says
My son is obsessed with garbage trucks and garbage cans. He also loves playing with his blocks and even sorting them. I think this mix will be a lot of fun. Thanks for the idea!
.-= Becoming LDS´s last blog ..Words of Wisdom Wednesday: Compliments =-.
Ms.Jessi says
We love to recycle in our classroom, this will be a great activity to add to the fun! Thank you! p.s. I like your son’s headband! 🙂
admin says
Yay glad others will get to play, we had so much fun with this one!
My son is a character, I bought a pack for keeping my hair out of my face when washing my face, well he stole one for himself. Cried when we wouldn’t let him wear it to bed and he wore that to storytime at the library too!
Shannon says
I love this. I am loving your site. Thanks for being so helpful about Blissdom and hope to meet you there. You are my featured blogger on my sidebar today, too.
admin says
I am so flattered Shannon! We will have to meet next week for sure!
Coralie says
We love Trash and Recycling at our house too (and the rest of the series too!). Have you tried the internet-references? We love those!
katherinemarie says
ohhhh this is so fabulous!!!!!!
.-= katherinemarie´s last blog ..Theme of the Week: {S O U P} =-.
Rebecca says
What a cute idea!
.-= Rebecca´s last blog ..Color Swirling Milk Experiment =-.
Cara says
I think my son loves garbage/recycling trucks as much as yours!! This is such a genius idea (as always) that we’re going to do it after naptime today! 🙂 We have the first book you mentioned, but I’ll have to find those others. One trash-related book my son adores is Trashy Town, by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha. Love your blog!
.-= Cara´s last blog ..Apple Picks =-.
Donette says
what a lovely idea!
when we make our trip to the library I will look for something on recycling etc…
.-= Donette´s last blog ..Webpage Updated =-.
admin says
Cara0 my son adores Trashy Town as well- so much that we call throwing things away ” Being Mr. Gilly!” there is a great video from scholastic of the book as well. You can find it on Youtube , just search for Trashy Town.
Erika Johnson says
Great idea! My 4 year old is totally into garbage trucks. Have you read the book “I Stink”? That is another great one!
admin says
Oh yes it was a much fought over book in my PreK class! Kids love gorss things and it’s full of it 🙂
Artist says
What a great idea for learning. Colors are just so important in life. As being synesthete I live a life in colors. Synesthesia means that I see colors when I see words and numbers.I transform this in paintings of names and birthdays.
.-= Artist´s last blog ..Enchanted Seagulls =-.
Dogwood Creations says
I love this idea! We are going to try it today.
Thanks for all the great projects and ideas.
Melodie says
So cool! I just made this for my 2 yo and a 3 yo boy who comes over who LOVES trucks. They loved the truck and conveyor belt and legos but as for sorting – BOR-ING! They weren’t interested. Oh well. The older kids seem to like that aspect anyway. Such a good idea!
.-= Melodie´s last blog ..Winners Of Honeysuckle Breast Milk Storage Bags =-.
Scott says
Love this idea! Another great way to think about recycling. (And learn all those great sorting and math skills!)
.-= Scott´s last blog .."But You Sit Behind Us" =-.
Jennifer says
We had SO much fun doing this! My son is almost 4. I just used blue painter’s tape on our play table to make the conveyor belt, and taped down colored squares of construction paper for the recycle bins. My son he decided to let the color bricks that didn’t fit into a category (like gray & maroon), fall off the table into a dump truck, where they were taken to a scrap yard (since they couldn’t be properly recycled!) We then used the Lego Duplo train set and took our “Recycled construction materials” in Rail Road cars to a construction site, where we made new buildings out of old materials. We played for nearly 2 hours!! Thank you so much! I wanted to send a picture, but not sure how??