Teach Kids to Tie Bows and Make a Beautiful Wreath

Are you trying to teach a child to tie their shoes? Here is a fun way for children to practiced tying bows while making a wreath from material scraps. Children will feel a sense of accomplishment as they tie long strands of material around a wreath circle. Or you can make a wire circle using a coat hanger. My grandson Brody made a wreath using wire that held a bail of straw together to make an upcycled gift that cost nothing - and helped him learn to tie bows. What a great gift to a mom or teacher - learning how to tie shoes!

Upcycled Bird Feeders Kids Can Make and Suet Recipe

Suet: Fun-to-Make Bird Food for Winter

To me birds symbolize hope, peace, strength, courage, freedom and immortality. But many birds live fragile lives and need our help finding food during the winter months when insects are scarce and snow may cover the ground. Children love making bird feeders and Suet  - which is a high protein mixture that is easy to make from household food items and also provides a hands-on sensory experience when children mix it. Here are two upcycled bird feeders and a Suet recipe:

When Kids Recycle, Animals are Saved

When my kindergartners were having trouble focusing on being quiet, I pulled out a critter book and we were all fascinated by the amazing facts of animals, insects, fish, and birds. Science was the favorite subject in my classes and we even won 1st place in Kindergarten for our science project which involved squiggly worms. Fascinating - to five-year-olds, plus  it gave my husband a reason to go fishing when the project was finished. So when children are not interested in what you are trying to teach, throw in animals and science and they will pay attention - especially hands-on learning like taking apart owl pellets to see what owls eat (I highly recommend you have plenty of parent volunteers that day) or having races with beetles which have emerged from your mealworms.

SIMPLE WAYS FOR CHILDREN TO RECYCLE:

When we  teach children to recycle, we are helping to protect our earth's natural resources including habitats, critters, and food supplies. It is easy to separate items that can be recycled:

• Aluminum cans: We earn money for aluminum cans or donate them to the Boy Scouts for their fund.
• Plastic: Using material bags instead of plastic keeps more plastic from being deposited in landfills or burned.
• Glass: Some places prefer the glass be separated by color.
• Cardboard: Children enjoy stomping on boxes so they will fit into the cardboard recyclable container.
• Paper: We stopped taking the newspaper (read news on internet) and cut down on junk mail and magazines.
• Metal: We decided to build a home in the country and bought land that was formerly cow pasture. There was a lot of metal left on the property - even an old car with a tree growing in the middle! My husband cut the car into pieces and took it to the Recycling Center along with other metal including cans from soup and vegetables. We were happy to collect several hundred dollars for a trailer full of metal.
• Water: Did you know water is our most endangered natural resource? There is no reason to purchase water in plastic containers. Tap water must undergo more stringent standards than bottled water. It would be cheaper in the long term to purchase a filtering system if you do not like the taste of tap water. Humans need to drink lots of water, but we can use the same container over and over.
• Hazardous Substances: Model for children the proper way to dispose of oil, paint and medicine so that it doesn't end up in our water supply.
• Clothes: My personal favorite - we don't need to wear clean clothes every day - saves on laundry, wear & tear on clothes, and electricity.

Since we recycle and live in the country, we are able to burn what little trash we have left and WE HAVE NO TRASH COLLECTOR'S BILL! But remember, never leave a fire unattended.

 Note water bucket and hose nearby.Yes, those are chickens in the background. They love our food scraps and give us delicious, nutritious eggs.

HOW DOES RECYCLING HELP ANIMALS?

• It protects their habitats.
• It prevents ocean life from being hurt by trash like plastic rings choking fish or plastic littering their water space. Plastic takes hundreds of years to disintegrate and even then the particles are not good for consumption.
• It provides a cleaner water supply.
• The less space used for landfills, the fewer rodents and more room for animal habitats.
• Crafts, gifts, and cards from recycled materials help critters such as bird houses made from wood scrapes, bird feeders made from plastic jugs, or gifts made from natural objects like a Fossil Dough Stick Ornament.
• Upcycling toys lessens the cost of  manufacturing and transportation. Mommy with Selective Memory's children spent hours making and playing with their 3D House Made from Trash around Your Home.
  

Little Buddy loves collecting sticks and berries then

making a Fossil Dough Ornament gift.

MORE IDEAS ON PINTEREST BOARD:
Recycle! Upcycle! Kids Activities & Art

3D House Made from Upcycled "Trash"

Birds enjoy Little Buddy's Birdhouse

Using Less - Means More.

Would you like inexpensive ideas, activities, and games to teach your child through play? See my new book, co-written with Mommy with Selective Memory titled The Happy Mommy Handbook: The Ultimate How-to Guide on Keeping Your Toddlers and Preschoolers Busy, Out of Trouble and Motivated to Learn  - or would you like a glimpse into Kindergarten? Both are bestsellers and are also available on Barnes & Noble and Kobo.

What other ways can children help animals?
What do you recycle?

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Upcycle Egg Cartons to Building Blocks

How many egg cartons does it take to build a fort? First, stack cartons, then estimate how many were used, read books or play games inside, then knock them down and count them. Our fort was built with 172 egg cartons. We also stacked them in groups of 10 and counted by 10s having a great math visual.

Blocks are a wonderful source for concrete mathematical learning. Young children will stack and knock down blocks over and over again because of the sensory rewards. The sight of the blocks falling is fun for a young child who is amazed by the effects of gravity. Egg cartons are light so knocking them down is harmless and could release stress. Block play can be rich in parent/child activity and filled with touch, sight, sound, repetition and imagination.

Maria Montessori, a pioneer in early childhood education, emphasized the importance of concrete forms in math education between the ages of three and five. Math manipulatives (objects that can be sorted, patterned, counted) facilitates abstract thought needed later to compute numbers. Montessori recommended that young children constantly move objects, like blocks and beads, and use their senses while learning because it leads to a later desire to write out a mathematical operation. 

If you don’t have wooden blocks, you can make your own blocks with tissue and cereal boxes, cool whip and yogurt containers, oatmeal and coffee canisters, and even egg cartons. For added weight, pack newspaper and seal containers with tape. For interesting sounds, add some dried beans, rice, marbles, or small rocks. For a more permanent fort, tape with masking tape.

Learning with Blocks

• Pattern: Lay out a pattern with different colored, shaped or sized blocks and ask, “What comes next?” Recognizing and predicting patterns is an important logic and math skill.

• Imaginative Play: Encourage your child to make something with blocks using their imagination and creativity. You could read a book such as Block City to help them devise a block building plan. Add something else to block play such as a toy car to drive on top of a line of blocks or action figures or dolls for fantasy play.

• Vocabulary: Name the different block shapes and point out similar shapes around the room. Place a number card beside blocks such as #1 with 1 block, #2 with 2 blocks so that they  grasp the concept of quality with a visual and sound of the number. Teach opposites: big/small, heavy/light, short/tall, up/down, in/out, few/many, under/over.

• Measurement: To extend mathematical concepts, use a tape measure, ruler or yardstick and note differences in the sizes of the blocks and structures. Your child will want to measure many things around the house or yard including people. Children enjoy having a special measuring place to chart their growth such as a closet.

• Motor Movement: Use an empty laundry basket or box and toss blocks, counting as you toss. Run around the house looking for objects with a similar shape, size or color. Hide some blocks around the room playing a game of finding them, announcing the shape or color each time one is found. Then count how many.

The possibilities are endless of what can be built with blocks, Legos, Lincoln logs, egg cartons and empty food containers. You don’t need to keep buying more and more toys, but explore all the possibilities of what you already have. 

Why do we have so many egg cartons? People give them to us because we have chickens!

 

 
When Kids Recycle: Animals are Saved
Recycle! Upcycle! Kids Art & Activities on Pinterest  

This post is part of an Egg Carton Challenge hosted by Tinkerlab. Would you like a glimpse into Kindergarten? See Kindergarten: Tattle-Tales, Tools, Tactics, Triumphs and Tasty Treats for Teachers and Parents. Moms of Preschoolers - let me help save your sanity, with playful activities including the child development explanations with The Happy Mommy Handbook: The Ultimate How-to Guide on Keeping Your Toddlers and Preschoolers Busy, Out of Trouble and Motivated to Learn. Both are bestsellers and also available on Barnes & Noble and Kobo.

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