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#1 Computer Keyboard: An outdated keyboard is a perfect teaching toy, as it includes the entire alphabet to assist in early literacy exercises.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.
These are awesome ideas! Not only hands on learning but repurposing and recycling all in a fun way!
My nephew loves playing with the keyboard so much. I think it’s a great idea to recycle it.
Thanks for all the ideas. It’s great especially when you have so many stuff that you don’t want to try yet but you can’t use anymore. Hehe.
These are indeed inexpensive ways to be creative with the kids and help their development
Such a great way to recycle! When my kids were little they loved to create games out of empty boxes.
I love the remote idea. It\’s so true how much kids love pushing buttons. An old keyboard, like in your photo, would also be fun for kids to play with. I just love finding new uses for old things!
I love items that are environment-friendly or are made of recycled items and toys are no exception. I’d always choose these over those that are not.
I love these ideas. I will definitely be making these things together with my kids before their school year start. Thank you!
Love that they’re recycled. Educational toys are always my choice as gifts to give to my nephews and nieces.
These are really cool toys. Kids will sure enjoy making it and have fun playing with it too.
Loving the sustainability angle…such fun and creative ways to “use again” for both kids and parents. Really loving the junk mail idea 🙂
These are so great and cool way of recycling things while turning them into a fun and entertaining stuff!
Just love this recycling based post. It’s good for the environment.