Reduce, Reuse and Recycle !!

Everyone is a fan of being green and recycling these days, preschoolers have this amazing knack for recycling everything over and over - in great new ways. Here are two great recycling projects which produce wonderful results.

Reuse those crayons! Crayons break, get worn down and lose their wrappers but should never be carelessly thrown away. Crayons are made of wax and all of us learned when we were younger and candles were lit, wax melts! -- I remember many days when mom wasn't looking when I covered my fingers with wax over and over... Yep, I was one of THOSE kids! -- Anyway - if you take your crayons and put them into muffin tins with cupcake wrappers you can remelt the crayons. I've done it a few times sans the wrappers and they are harder to get out, but you can get different shapes. Put them in the oven on a low warm setting and let them melt together for a good 5-10 minutes. If you haven't figured it out by now I can never just leave a project this simple. It's all about new things and adding more. I often times will mix crayon colors and add glitter. I've also added some silly stuff in the center for the kids to find as they use the crayons. It's a huge hit in the classroom, plus a great science project to boot!


 

The second project today is a little more crazy and time consuming. I did this project months ago with my class and would actually recommend doing it with a smaller group... compared to my twenty kiddos. Unfortunately when I did the project I didn't take pictures, thankfully I was able to find one on the web that will give you an solid concept of the project. Rolled newspaper forts... Take 4-5 sheets of newspaper laying on top of each other. Roll the paper at a diagonal from corner to corner. Tape it together with masking tape to form a stick. Make at least 10 - 15 of these paper sticks. Once the sticks are made use more masking tape (you'll use nearly a roll for this project) to tape them together and create joints.

Continue to work your way around connecting the joints at until you have 5 together for the top. Continue down to create a fort stemming off from the top five. (see the picture... it helps in explaining) eventually you are going to create a house that the kids LOVE to climb in and out of. I also used this same technique to create a 3D umbrella coming off of my wall during our ocean / beach theme. I just did half of the top and covered it in paper. It was a super cute addition to the room!