Games To Recycle
Environmental awareness is created with daily actions and using different games to recycle is a great way to do it.
Children love all the activities that have to do with ecology and that they can do themselves, such as helping in a family garden or building objects for the house by reusing materials. This time we chose to share 5 simple ideas of games to recycle.
Games to recycle: learn by playing
Playful activities always have an educational side, be it social, emotional, sensory, etc. When learning by playing, the child does so without pressure, only enjoying the moment, but with the certainty that the learning that is achieved is solid and lasting.
Here are some games to recycle so that children begin to understand the importance of the actions necessary to take care of the planet.
1. Waste selection game
To assemble this game you will need to collect solid and dry waste for a time in a bag, such as paper, plastic bottles, cans, cardboard, lids, etc. When you have this, organize the game to teach the children to select the materials and explain why it should be done that way.
Next, find four containers in which the materials for recycling will go:
- Blue for paper and cardboard.
- Green for glass.
- Yellow for plastics, containers, cans and bricks .
This recycling game consists of placing the elements in the corresponding container until you finish locating them all. By doing this, you are teaching them not to make mistakes when making the source selection of the waste. For example, some of the most frequent mistakes are the following:
- Bricks containers : they go in the plastic container, even if they appear to be cardboard.
- Cardboard : cardboard stained with grease cannot be recycled, it goes with common waste.
- Notebooks : paper is recycled as long as we remove the plastic elements, such as rings or covers.
- Glasses : bottles and jars have to be clean inside and go to the container without a lid or stopper.
- Clothes, shoes, household items do not go in the recycling bins. Anything that is in good condition should be donated to someone in need.
The Biodiversity Foundation presents on its website an interactive version of this game called “The recycling challenge”, with a very funny bear as the main character.
2. Game to recycle cardboard: a city to measure
Building a miniature city is a great project for repurposing items like boxes, cardboard, old papers, and newspapers. Help children to design their own city including houses, buildings, streets, squares, schools and everything that comes to mind!
This recycling game is fantastic because it is so dynamic ; You can add buildings and use many things that you find at home, such as pieces of fabric or wood, buttons, foam for packaging and much more.
3. Bowling with colored bottles, one of the best games to recycle
The plastic bottles are one of the most versatile elements for reuse. In this case, they will be used to make a bowling game. You will need 10 empty bottles of the same size and shape (all must have a cap).
To have a bottle of each color, you can put paint inside them and shake them so that all the walls are impregnated. Afterwards, you leave them uncovered until they dry. This recycling game is completed with the ball also made from recycled material, such as aluminum foil.
Another way to make them colorful is to fill them with water and add colorings of different shades. In this case, be sure to close the lid tightly when you go to play! If you choose this option, the ball should be made of a heavier material, for example you can make one with papier-mâché.
4. A puppet theater: a recycling game with extras
To make the body of the puppets, use old socks and decorate them according to the character you want to create. For the head you can make one with painted foam or with papier-mâché that you will make yourself at home.
Take the sock and, through the fingers, pass the fabric with a skewer, the kind used for skewers. Thus, you unite the head and the body.
Find a large cardboard box to build the stage. Make a window in one of the sides and glue glitter papers to the whole box. Just look for the best place in the house to set up the theater and start the show.
It is a recycling game that can also be used to do an extra activity: for children to imagine and write a story. Isn’t it cool?
5. Stilts to look taller
Gather several pairs of food cans and paint them in fun colors or decorate them with stickers. For the older ones, use cans of milk or fruit.
To do this, you have to use them the other way around, that is, with the base on top. There you have to make two holes facing each other, with an awl or a nail and hammer.
A long rope passes through each hole and knot the end that remains on the inside of the can, which will act as a stop. The idea is that the ropes reach up to the height of the children’s hands and they can hold them. Clever! It only remains to climb and, with the ropes, move the stilts to the rhythm of the feet.
Recycling games bring benefits for everyone
When you teach children to build their own games with obsolete material, you are putting in place positive actions that benefit everyone. It is the most basic and effective way to do environmental education at home. This way of educating is something bigger than reusing a product, it is respecting nature and betting on a cleaner and healthier world.
