The Iowa Farmer's Wife: recycling

Showing posts with label recycling. Show all posts

Egg Carton Shamrocks

Sweet P's a wee bit obsessed with St. Patrick's Day. We checked out a book from the library last week and we've read it every day this week. At least 4 times. Not kidding. The other night we read it before dinner and when she was picking out books to read after dinner she said, "How 'bout this one again?" She LOVES it! All that to say that she's been loving shamrock activities as well.

We created this simple activity out of an egg carton. I did the cutting and Sweet P did the painting.

I don't have any pictures of the painting process, but the end result speaks for itself (right?). They sat to dry for, oh, 4 days, before we got around to finishing them! I hot glued felt on bottoms for the stems, and glued a loop of pipe cleaner to the top as a hanger.

Sweet P chose glittery green St. Patrick's Day scatter to put on each one. I put the glue on (we used hot glue) and then she placed it where she wanted it.

I ran a bit of yarn through the loop and hung them up in our living room. I love how the glittery parts shimmer in the sun!

A super simple shamrock craft for St. Patrick's Day! And I bet you have everything you need around the house! Don't have felt? Use paper. Don't have pipe cleaners? Just poke a hole in the top and string the yarn through. Don't have yarn? Use string! The options are endless.

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Recycled Medals

Last Saturday we created an Olympic Obstacle course (more on that coming soon) for Sweet P complete with an Olympic torch, medals and rings. We made our medals on Saturday morning while the Farmer was at class, and I was having a hard time coming up with what to use.

My original idea was to just use paper and paint it Gold, Silver and Bronze, but while I was in the basement rummaging through the recycling products I keep for crafts, I found a gold lid from a jar of pickles. It was PERFECT for the gold medal. So I decided we'd use that for gold and paint the others. Then I picked up a plastic lid the same size as the gold lid and thought YES! we can cover this one with tin foil! There were two of those so I decided we'd use tin foil on one and paint bronze on a piece of paper for the bronze medal.

After Sweet P'd painted a bronze circle on a piece of paper and it was outside drying, she made the silver medal with tin foil. When I looked it I realized we could simply PAINT the tin foil with the bronze paint and it'd be perfect! I mixed up another batch of bronze paint and she painted the tin foil (not as easy as it looks!). She ended up having to do a bit of a sponge method to get the paint to stay without smearing.

The Craft: Recycled Medals

What you need:
1 Gold lid
2 plastic lids
tin foil
bronze paint (or a mixture of yellow and sparkly pink)
beads (color of your choice)
glue gun

Fold tin foil around the 2 plastic lids until fit to your liking.

Set aside the Silver medal and paint the other with bronze paint. Set aside to dry.

Hot glue beads to the inside groove of each lid. Wear with pride!

Check out our 3 Olympic Ring Ideas and stayed tuned for Kids Bloggers Go Olympics! The Blog Hop beings July 27th! We hope you'll join the fun! Visit these introduction posts by Rainy Day Mum and Angelique Felix for more information on how YOU can participate!

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3 Olympic Ring Activities

Are you getting ready for the Olympics?! We are so excited about the opening ceremony this week!

Last week Sweet P made 3 different sets of Olympic rings. I read an excerpt from an Olympics website about the significance of the rings and explained to Sweet P that they represent the five major regions that participate in the Olympics: the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania. The colors are not linked to a specific continent and are present on the Olympic flag, which made its debut at the 1920 games in Belgium.

Sweet P made the first two sets with paint and recycled materials.

TP Rings:

Toilet paper tubes
Red, black, blue, yellow and green paint
Paint brush
Glue gun

Sweet P painted the outsides of the rings (in hindsight, we probably should've done the insides, too!) and I glued the rings together with a glue gun.

Egg carton Rings:

Empty egg carton
Red, black, blue, yellow and green paint
Paint brush
Scissors
Glue gun

I cut out the carton so that there were 3 in a row for the top row of rings and 2 in a row for the bottom row of rings. I showed Sweet P a picture of the rings and she painted them accordingly. I glued the two rows together when the paint dried.

To hang TP Rings and Egg Carton Rings: Punch a hole in the top and string yarn through the hole. Hang to display.

Sprout LOVES the Olympic Rings mobile we have hanging in our kitchen!

Do-A-Dot Rings:

Do-A-Dot markers (or any type of markers) in red, black, blue, yellow and green
Large piece of drawing paper
Pencil
Lid or circular object to trace

I traced the rings onto the paper in pencil and explained the activity to Sweet P. I again showed her the picture of the Olympic rings and she dotted the rings in the colored order. On some of them, she decided to trace the ring instead of dot along the line, which turned out pretty neat! I wasn't sure if she'd be able to tell the difference in the rings since they overlap, but she did it without a problem.

Are you ready for the Olympics? We are! In fact, we're pairing up with several other fabulous bloggers in a series called:

Visit these introduction posts by Rainy Day Mum and Angelique Felix for more information on how YOU can participate!

How are you celebrating the Olympics?

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Pretend Play: Composting

Guess what?! It's Week 5 of the Readathon and it's all about being kind to the Earth and being Green! We are lovin' the 2 free ebooks this week, Let's Go Chipper: Into the Great Outdoors and What Does it Mean to Be Green? Both books have some fabulous ways to love the Earth and reduce your carbon footprint.

I had a few ideas on what we might do as an activity this week, but Sweet P beat me to it. Read on to see how:

Pretend Play: Composting might sound a bit weird, but composting around our house is as common as throwing something in the trash or recycling bin. So while it sounds weird, it should come as no surprise that when Sweet P plays in her play kitchen, she also composts.

We use plastic bags we've saved (even though we use reusable bags, somehow plastic bags still find a way into our house!) for our compost because it's what works best for us right now. The Farmer takes the bags out to the farm and puts them into our compost bins. At some point we hope to get a bin for our compost instead of using plastic bags in the house, but right now our kitchen is a wee bit cramped. Anyway, the plastic bag hangs on the door to the basement and we've taught Sweet P to throw apple cores, banana peels, orange peels, etc. into the bag.

One day I hauled a bunch of stuff up to her room using a plastic bag and after we put the stuff away she asked for the bag.

Sweet P: "I need it for my compost."

And pretend play compost began.

Monday we were playing upstairs and she was cutting fruit, veggies and bread (while Sprout was eating it) from 2 different sets of Melissa & Doug wooden food when she said, "I need a compost bag." Instead of going to find a plastic bag, I said "Why don't you use your reusable bag?"...so she did!

As she cut up her fruit, she'd drop pieces she deemed unworthy of consumption into the bag. She also took a whole tomato and said, "This is all moldy" and tossed it in.

I have to be honest that I never thought we'd be playing "Composting" with our kids, but there I was!

Here are a few other things we do around here (read more in What Does it Mean to be Green?) to reduce our carbon footprint:

Recycle (you can read more about that in this post)
Grow our own vegetables and buy local as often as possible
Eat produce that is in season

This was hard for me until we had our own garden, but now I refuse to buy fresh tomatoes out of season. Nothing compares to garden fresh tomatoes!

Walk to the library (we can't walk many places from our house, but the library is super close so we walk as often as we can, even in snow!)
Save clothes for future siblings
Turn off the water while we brush our teeth
Draw on recycled paper (I save any and all scrap paper so she can draw on the back)
and we DEFINITELY eat our ice cream out of a cone! (read the ebook if this is confusing!)

One we're working on:

Shutting off the water while we rub the soap on our hands

Check out the MeMeTales Pinterest Board for more Earth Based Books, Activities, Crafts and Learning Curriculum.

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Party Favor Painting

We brought home some party favor horns from our outing on New Year's Eve and Gammie asked if I wanted them before she tossed them. I said, "We'll find something to do with them." And I'm so excited I did!

It took me awhile to come up with something, but then I realized these would be AWESOME paint brushes! And they were! Sweet P also used them in snow play dough after she painted with them.

I mixed up some paint based on the color of the horns and then placed the corresponding horn in its color of paint. She had a lot of fun, but the strands did tend to stick together. She used each color, then said she was done so we hung it up to admire it. I love the way it turned out!

Looks a lot like fireworks, doncha think?

What random items have YOU painted with? Leave a link in the comments!

Lid Ornaments

The inspiration for this project came from these Nature Collage Ornaments posted by The Golden Gleam. We tried several times to collect nature pieces for this project, but the first time we forgot about the berries and they got thrown away. Then I kept forgetting to have her bring acorns inside during her walks with daddy on vacation. We still plan to do the nature version when the weather warms back up.

While we were crafting with TK, Blair and Gammie, we had her sensory bin from last year out. There were PLENTY of small pieces perfect for making ornaments similar to the Nature Ornaments. We liked the first one so much - we made 3!

The Craft: Lid Ornaments

What you need:

Elmer's glue

Small beads, rhinestones, pompoms, jinglebells or other objects

Lid from a glass jar or tin can lid opened with the proper can opener (it doesn't leave a sharp edge)

Yarn or ribbon

Pour Elmer's glue onto the top of the lid, then stick objects in the glue. Allow to dry overnight or until the pieces no longer move around. Glue yarn or ribbon to the back to hang the ornament on the wall or on your tree at Christmas.

Gammie has a fancy hole punch so our tin can lids had holes punched in them for easy hanging!

Pretend Play: Cardboard Car Wash

Sweet P is OBSESSED with the car wash. She tells me every time we run errands, "We need to wash the car." And half the time she is right! Especially since we don't have a garage and it snows! One day she was talking about taking her toy cars to the car wash so I decided I'd whip one up for her.

I found a medium-sized box and got to cutting. The hole had to be adjusted several times to accommodate larger vehicles that also needed a wash.

I'm not lying when I say this activity has seen HOURS of play. And it is SO simple.

One of her favorite things to do was line up all the cars at the entrance, then drive them through and park them on the sides of the box. The Farmer and I had a great time with it, too!

We didn't, but this would be so fun to decorate with paint, paper or markers! We're doing that next time!

So what are you waiting for? Go get a box!

Wouldn't want to wait in that line!

5 Days of Advent Calendars: Chain Calendar

If you have a Trader Joe's (and you forgot to bring your own bag), you've seen the holiday bags with holiday tags and a chain to cut out.

When Auntie K was here she cut out all the pieces and glued most of the chain together. I counted the chain after she left and realized we only needed 3 more pieces to have 16 links so I found the extras and glued on three more.

Each day after we do our "days" (circle time) we tear off a link to countdown to Christmas (or countdown to leaving town for Christmas).

I love the simplicity of this countdown and that it recycles!

Do you have an Advent countdown activity?

Our other Advent Calendars:
Day 1: Book Calendar
Day 3: Gift Calendar
Day 4: Advent Action Calendar
Day 5: Santa Calendar

Tot Preschool: Letter Jj

Sweet P is 30.5 mos old

The week of Letter J was our first week without any visitors (isn't that crazy?!). We have a super awesome family and they all came to see us during the month of October (and Auntie K came during Letter K...I'm a bit behind). We had a great time with Letter J and will do more of it during the month of December for the birth of Jesus.

Verse: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

Bible Figures: Jonah and Joseph (Jacob's son)

Activities:

Dotting Upper and Lowercase Letters: I made these (obviously!) for her to dot individual letters and practice listening and following directions.

J maze from Shannon's Tot School: These are for fun, but she did a good job dotting just the J's! She doesn't go in order of the maze, yet.

Letter J collage: Pink letter J with magazine cut outs and stickers of items starting with letter J. We had lots of Jesus stickers for her to put on this that she was pretty excited about!

Turkey: The Farmer brought home a turkey from work for her to color and she loved it! She wanted to color it for several days in a row.

J is for Jam from A Heart for a Home: She did this with dot markers this week and did great at following directions (numbered coloring).

COAH's J is for Jesus coloring page: She traced the letters on the top and then colored the manger scene. We practiced more with following directions by me telling her "Color Mary's dress blue", etc.

DLTK's J is for Jug: She wanted to use regular markers instead of dot markers for this so she colored in the dots with lines. Sweet P LOVES to color!

Joseph's Coat: See link for details.

Pouring Jingle bells: She LOVES pouring and loves jingle bells so this was the perfect activity for letter J.

Shaving cream: We played with and traced letter J in shaving cream! She loves this sensory activity!

Pouring and using a dropper: One night while I was making dinner, Sweet P poured water and used a dropper to transfer water back and forth between the two cups.

Thankful Turkey: See link for details.

Jonah and the Whale: I made Jonah and the whale out of foam and we acted out the story several times that week. I drew a surprised face on one side of Jonah and a happy face for when the whale spit him out!