While Earth Day is a yearly reminder to consider our role in protecting the environment– in our house EVERY Day is Earth Day. And as parents we can make a positive impact on our kids ( and instill in them a love for their planet) by creating fun, educational toys from everyday items that may initially seem like trash, but can be repurposed into teaching tools aka similar to these DIY Educational Toys Made From Recycled Items!
“Children are natural learners, and often see educational opportunities that adults can miss,” says Richard Peterson, vice president of education for Kiddie Academy Child Care Learning Centers. “Anyone who’s given a child a new toy and then found him playing with the box can appreciate a child’s gift for creative play.”
Want to feed your child’s imagination, while helping the environment? Check out the following DIY Educational Toys Made From Recycled Items –10 ideas for creating recycled educational toys!
#1 Computer Keyboard: An outdated keyboard is a perfect teaching toy, as it includes the entire alphabet to assist in early literacy exercises. Challenge your child to sing the ABC song while locating each letter on the keyboard.
http://www.hellowonderful.co/post/10-INVENTIVE-SHOEBOX-CRAFTS
#2 Shoebox to Mailbox: Children love getting mail. Reinforce both reading and writing skills by creating a family mailbox from an old shoebox. Encourage your child to write notes to family members, and leave notes for them as well.
picture courtesy michaels.com
#3 Water Bottle Instrument: Fill a clean, dry plastic water or soda bottle with rice, bells, beans or coins and shake them to hear a variety of new sounds. Glue the top on to secure the contents.
#4 Junk Mail: Instead of immediately sending your unwanted mail to the landfill, allow your child to play with the envelopes and letters. She can pretend to be a postal carrier while getting additional exposure to printed words.
photo courtesy of Magazine Strip Silhouette Wall art
#5 Magazines: Glossy photos in magazines are perfect for creating collage art that provides fine motor skill practice with scissors and glue.
#6 TV remote: Children love pushing buttons. An unused television remote control can be used for number and math play. Simply remove the batteries and ask him to find the numbers as you call them out.
#7 Clothing: Dramatic play is an essential teaching tool that allows children to explore social roles, practice problem solving and language skills. Add no longer needed pieces of your own wardrobe to the toy chest to encourage your child’s imagination. She can literally try on a different role by wearing your skirt, hat or shoes.
#8 Linens: Your child can use a worn out sheet or towel as a cape, picnic blanket or as the roof to a play fort.
#9 Toilet Paper Tube: Empty TP tubes are a favorite art tool in classrooms. Save a box of them, and give them to your child along with a few craft supplies to see what he can create. Binoculars, stamps and creatures are popular choices.
#10 Boxes: While it’s tempting to immediately recycle a box, your child can have hours of fun using an empty box for creative play. What seems like trash to you could become a school bus, secret hideout or magic castle.
I get wayyyy too much junk mail. I never would have thought to save it for the kiddos to play with, but I absolutely LOVE that idea.
These are some great ideas. I might have to make some of these toys. I always like to recycle old items. We’ve made fun things with TP rolls.
It is amazing the things you can make from junk around the home, these are such fun ideas for things to make to not only educate but show how it can be done!
These look like a lot of fun to me. I would love to try some of these crafts with my nieces and nephews. I know they are going to love it
I love this recycled toy kids can be creative and having fun while playing this. When I was a kid I used to make paper doll.
I’m always saving the TP rolls for a project! Then I end up recycling them!
These are all great ideas. I will start keeping those TP rolls. There is an endless list of things you can make out of them. Recycling old shoe boxes is a fine idea too!
We are totally doing the wall art today!! Great Idea. Thanks!
Wow these are such great ideas. I love that they are eco-friendly too. That magazine wall art one is so neat!!
When I was a kid I made doll houses from boxes and had such a fun time doing it. In this crazy time, what a great thing for kids to do!
These are all so neat. I think it’s great to make items from recycled products. I love doing this with my daughters as well.
How many beautiful item one can from the usual things that we have in our house!
I love these ideas!!! This will come in handy during our quarantine. I especially love the junk mail idea.
Fun idea to get creative with TP rolls. A wonderful way of recycling with creativity.