Did you know that today marks the start of National Recycling Week? In NYC we have to recycle so I grew up always having to sort garbage. At two and a half my daughter also knows the importance of recycling. I explained to her that by recycling we are helping to reuse garbage in different ways. She knows where to throw her paper, plastic and regular garbage at. She actually has fun running to kitchen to throw things away.
I wanted to teach her that garbage doesn't have to be thrown away and that it could be given a second life. To get her excited about using garbage for other uses we watched Anneroids together. Annedroids is an adventure series that focuses on science. A cool little eleven year old prodigy, Anne invents and builds some amazing androids with the help of her two sidekicks, Nick and Shania from things in her junk yard. Not only does the show teach science in a way that a kid could understand but it also shows how you can reuse "junk" or garbage and eliminate waste.
First I took the paper towel tubes and cut them into 1/2" slices. I pinched two sides to create petal shapes.
I showed my daughter how to dip the petals in the glue and paste them on to the paper. Then we took the paints out and I tried to steer her into coloring the ground with brown, the leaves and stem with green and the petals with pink and purple. Then I told her to color the background with blue.
Though she painted the design how she wanted we still came out with a beautiful piece of art. She loves painting so it was cool to see her painting on a different raised texture of the paper tube. We created a flower design but you can do so many different things with the paper tube slices.
You can celebrate recycling week and get some great ideas by watching Annedroids on Amazon Prime Instant Videos.
Have you ever watched Annedroids before? How do you teach your kids the importance of recycling?
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
