Making Recycling Fun for Your Family

Family Tips: Making Recycling Fun

Teaching children about sustainability is an important part of our curriculum at Paisley Park Early Learning Centres.

To extend on this learning we’ve outlined some ideas and activities for helping your children learn more about sustainability at home, whilst also having fun!

Host a Toy Swap

A really fun way for your children to learn about recycling is to host a toy swap.

You can invite a group of friends to your home or nearby park. Ask everyone to bring a toy that is clean and in good condition but no longer used or loved, to be exchanged for something ‘new’.

This article has some great tips on how to organise a toy swap in your community: https://reducereuserenewblog.com/howtohostatoyswap/

Make Your Own Paint

Your children will have lots of fun making their own paint with this simple recipe using basic ingredients and repurposing used food containers.

Equipment

• Mixing bowl
• Large spoon
• Used zip-lock bags
• Empty cardboard cartons  and/or fruit punnets

Ingredients – for each colour

• ½ cup plain flour
• ½ cup salt
• ½ cup water
• Water-based food colouring

Method

• Mix the flour and salt in a bowl
• Mix the water and the colouring
• Then pour the coloured water in with the salt and flour and mix well
• Spoon the paint into a used zip-lock bag and seal
• Repeat for different colours
• When ready to paint, make a tiny cut in the corner of each paint bag
• Squeeze the bag to pour the paint out to decorate the cartons and punnets

Watch a video of this activity led by one of our Educators: https://somup.com/c31V1Et05m

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

These are the three core principles of recycling:

• Reduce: You can do this when making purchasing choices, by opting for items with minimal or no packaging. Where that’s not possible, choose items with recycled and/or recyclable packaging.
• Re-use: Wherever possible re-use items that have fulfilled their initial purpose either by cleaning and re-using for the same thing, or getting creative and finding new ways to use the item for a new purpose. The painting activity here or using ice cream containers for pot plants are examples of this recycling principle.
• Recycle: Where neither of those is possible, do the right thing by always making sure to put waste items in the correct recycling bin (glass / paper / plastics / etc). Or if items are still useable find them a new home. Examples of this are toy or book exchanges, charity stores, or passing things on to friends or family.

We hope this article provides some ideas and inspiration for making recycling fun for your family!