Recycling Crafts!
Ms. Kat shows how to make your kids favorite characters with recycle materials! Check out all her tips for making Pete The Cat and Baby Shark!
Ms. Kat's note of importance when creating a craft with your child:
One of the most important things to remember when making crafts with your child is that it is your child’s project. Children should be allowed to decide what they want their project to be. Children should be the ones to decide what process they will use to make their project what they want it to be. The reasoning behind this is because it allows your child to discover more about their world. It also lets your child be more assertive and confident in his/her abilities and choices. That’s not to say that you cannot do product art with your child because that has merit too. However, sometimes we focus too much on the idea of: “if you are making a dog it needs to look like a dog to me.” When the project may look like a dog to your child the way it is.
For more information on process vs. product art check out this website: https://www.educationalplaycare.com/blog/product-art-vs-process-art/
1. Tissue box crafts: Tissue boxes are great to make into other crafts. You can also make them into games. Some ideas you can make tissue boxes into: a car wash, a dinosaur, a monster, an aquarium, etc. Below I have links to videos where I show you how to make a tissue box into a shark and Pete the cat. I also explain how you can make tissue boxes into games .
Shark videos:
Pete the Cat videos:
10+1 Recycling Crafts
Crafts are a great way to encourage your child to express his/her creativity. Not only that, but when your child is making crafts he/she is also working on spatial awareness, fine motor skills, and cognitive skills. Here are some simple craft ideas you can do with your child that will also help you reuse, or recycle, items around your home such as: popsicle sticks, paper bags, paper, paper plates, paper towel tubes, and tissue boxes.
1. Popsicle people: get a popsicle stick, usually large popsicle sticks work best, and use markers to decorate them to look like people.
2. Paper bag animals: use a small paper bag to make puppet animals. After you make the animals, you can create a story using them.
3. Letter animals: draw, or print out, a letter. Have your child make the letter into an animal, or something else, that starts with that letter. Ex. Make an “A” into an alligator.
4. Shape collage: you can either cut out shapes, or have your child cut out shapes with different colored pieces of construction paper. Then use glue to glue the shapes onto a different piece of paper to make whatever you want.
5. Painting collage: along the same lines as the shape collage, but this is a multi-step project. First have your child paint a piece of paper whatever colors he/she wants. Option: after the paint dries you can use crayons and color over the paint to add another step/texture to the work of art. Have your child cut, or rip, the painted piece of paper. Then let your child glue the pieces onto a different piece of paper. We did this art project at school when we studied Eric Carle. The children enjoyed making the pieces of paper into animals like Eric Carle does.
6. Handprint art: you can either paint your child’s hand or trace your child’s hand. Some children can trace their hands on their own. Then try to make the hand into something else. We have made turkeys at school. But, you can also make peacocks, elephants, dinosaurs, kites, and so much more!
7. Thumbprint art: along the same idea as handprint art. You can use a stamp ink pad or paint and create different things using your child’s thumbprint. Some ideas are: trees, a rainbow, a snowman, a caterpillar, flowers, etc.
8. Construction paper chain craft: this is a great activity to work on scissor skills. Draw lines across pieces of colored paper (construction paper or paper that your child colored). Then have your child cut, with child safe scissors, across the line. If your child cannot cut, you can either help him/her or have your child rip long pieces of paper. Then you can glue or tape the pieces in circles around each other.
9. Paper plate crafts: there are so many different things you can make with paper plates. Children have enjoyed making the earth, emotion faces, flowers, the sun, the moon, a rainbow, and much more at school.
10. Paper towel tube crafts: there is so much you can do with paper towel tubes. Whether you are coloring them or using your imagination to make them into something else they are great to reuse for crafts. Some ideas for crafts are: binoculars, animals, kaleidoscope, musical shaker, a trumpet, a toy car ramp, a bird feeder, etc.