Green Activities
Hey kids! Check out some cool green things you can do at home and at school.
Special thanks to Wendy Rosenoff, author of Grow Your Own Treehugger, who kindly provided these green activities.
- Turn your Trash into Treasure
- Colour me Green
- Ruling out Lunch Waste
- Plastic Bag Flowers
- Texting Lingo
- Calculator Riddle
Take Action!
Check out our green tips to help you do something everyday for the environment!
Activities
Turn your Trash into Treasure!
Send us photos of things that you’ve made from objects that would have ended up in the trash.
Here’s some examples of what others have made:
Plastic Bag Flowers
Materials
14 inch stick or pruned twig of approximate length from outside
colorful plastic bags from the mall
twist ties
scissors
Instructions
1. Using the fan fold commonly done with construction paper, fold one plastic bag at a time.
2. Crimp at the half way point and wrap around a stick, a few inches down from the top of the stick.
3. Twist tie tightly into place, using more twist ties if needed.
4. Spread out the bag into a flower shape.
5. cut the ends into fringed or rounded scallop petals.
These plastic bag flowers serve as a reminder to take reusable bags into the mall as well as into the grocery store. The mall plastic bags are made of a stronger plastic, usually colorful and make great flowers. It would be great to find the mall bag extinct in a few years time!
This is a wreath made of thread spools that were glued on a square box. Yarn was wrapped around it with junked found objects glued all over.
These are puppets made from all donated and recycled materials. The bodies are made from shoe boxes and they are dressed in are scrap fabric. The heads are papier mache with newsprint. Faces are constructed with found buttons and yarns.
Color Me Green
Take those worn out crayons and reinvent them into coloring discs. Kids you’ll need to get your parents involved with this one. Be sure to ask permission before you start!
Materials:
(each item used should be used for craft projects only, not for food)
- old, small pot
- old muffin tin
- old stirring spoon
- old grater
- bowls or recycled yogurt containers to catch the shavings
- non-stick spray
- 72 or more used-up, tired crayons
Directions
- Have fun peeling the crayons.
- Set aside peeled crayons into groups of six, blending colors, or keeping the same color spectrum for each.
- Spray muffin tin.
- Using one group of crayons at a time, grate into smaller pieces.
- Contain the shavings in recycled yogurt containers until ready to melt.
- Over low heat, melt one set of shavings at a time.
- Stir while over heat, until mostly melted; some remaining chunks are fine.
- Pour into one muffin space at a time in the sprayed tin.
- Allow to cool until hardened; ranges from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on crayons, shaving size
- Invert muffin tin and bang out the disc crayons in cool new colors.
- Draw and share!
Drawing New Conclusions
Did you know that the average child will use 700 crayons by their 10th birthday? Wow! Crayons are most commonly manufactured with paraffin wax, a petroleum by-product that is not biodegradable, so extending their life cycle is a good idea before they retire to the landfill.
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!
New crayons feel fresh and lovely coming out of the perfect box, but you can create all kinds of artistic beauty out of recycled crayons too and feel good about saving them from the dump.
Above and Beyond!
www.CrazyCrayons.com takes old crayons and makes them into new ones in the same shape as the crayons you're used to. They also use the old wrappers to make fire-starters. When buying new, look for soy crayons that are biodegradable and come in great shades too. Soy is not hazardous to your creativity.
Ruling out Lunch Waste
Every time you bring your lunch to school you could be reducing waste. Here’s how!
Materials:
- Reusable water bottle - stainless steel
- Reusable container - snack size
- Reusable container - sandwich size
- Reusable lunch bag – put all your containers inside
Directions:
- Pledge to reduce your lunch waste by using a reusable water bottle, and reusable snack and lunch containers.
- Decorate your own lunch bag to hold all your containers. Put your name on it!
Lunch was never this green…unless it stayed in your locker or desk too long!
Why does your lunch matter?
Lunch happens every school day and the cumulative waste can be excessive. Make some thoughtful choices that reflect respect for the earth by taking simple steps to all things reusable. There will still be product packaging to deal with but it’s much less if you’re wrapping and washing instead of playing trash-can basketball every single day of the school year with your wax paper, plastic and paper bags or aluminum foil.
Above and Beyond!
A litterless lunch is not just for school! You can also use reusable containers when you go to the park, beach or your next trip to the zoo.
Puzzles
Texting Lingo
pt a ltl grEn in yr lyf
Can you figure it out?
stdy nature, lov nature, stay clse 2 nature. itlnvr fail u
(Frank Lloyd Wright)
Check back soon! We’ll post a new one each month.
Calculator riddle
Pesticides are not kind to ______
(or to the water table, soil, water, air, people or animals!).
Answer:
76 x 12 - 11 + 1,004 + 3,433 = _______
(turn calculator upside down)
Take Action!
Here’s some things you can do everyday to help the environment. Tell your parents, family and friends that they can do these things too!
Remember your reusable bag
What does your shopping bag say about you? Help your adult remember to use reusable bags at the grocery store AND the mall!
Look for recycled gifts to buy
Recycled gifts are unique – things like snowboard bags made from old billboards, wallets made out of duct tape or a wristlet made out of gum wrappers.
(Design – many different bag photos)
Save your hair clippings for a good cause
Wherever your family gets their hair cut, talk to them about www.matteroftrust.org. Have your salon send all the hair clippings that accumulate throughout the day on the cutting room floor to be used as mats for soaking up oil spills.
Special thanks to Wendy Rosenoff, author of Grow Your Own Treehugger, who kindly provided these green activities.
