♻️Recycled 🖼Arts and Crafts

Below I will share some of our recycled arts and crafts children did, using materials you probably have at home. There is nothing more exciting than turning "rubbish" into art while challenging creativity and inventiveness.

🍂Nature 🍃Inspired 🎨Art

Inspired by Nature Anatomy book, today, children enjoyed "printing patterns" of different leaves. First, offer your child to make an arrangement from leaves on a paper. You will then take each leaf, cover one side with paint using a paintbrush, then carefully place that leaf paint-face down on a paper, cover with another piece of scrap paper and carefully roll over with a roller or a brayer.

Make sure to cover the leaf you are rolling over with a paper to prevent staining the roller or a brayer.

We also added glitter to the paint while it was still wet to give it a sparkling effect. Frame your nature-inspired art and your child's masterpiece is ready to decorate a wall!

☀️Sun 🖼Art

Have you tried Sun Art? It is a type of "shade art" and is super fun to do with your little ones. First, decide what objects would you like to have the imprint of? We have collected fallen leaves and flowers and I offered children to arrange them on a special SunArt paper.

Expose your arrangement to direct sunlight (1 – 5 min depending on the sun's strength). Then, slide the acrylic sheet that held everything together. The SunArt paper will turn light blue, while the shadow of the objects will turn darker. A MUST: quickly rinse with water or your image will eventually fade (to obtain a darker image, add a few drops of lemon juice to the water). Frame your Sun Art. We used this tape to give our art a frame.

♻️Recycled💦Water Bottle Person Craft

This Green Craft is Julia's creative project in its entirety! If you have a recycled plastic water bottle, some loose parts, and sprinkles of creative imagination, you can make it too!

Cut the bottle and half, and offer your child to envision a person's face. Offer beads, feathers, recycled bottle caps, yarn and other loose parts to decorate the face. Insert one cap into the other to create a 3-D effect.

Offer your child to reduce our carbon footprint in our landfills by recycling and creating! "A child who concentrates is immensely happy," said Dr. Maria Montessori, and a child who creates during such concentration process is blissful!

♻️Recycled🍾Champagne Cork Puppets

Are you not sure what to do with all the recycled champagne corks? Well, how about DIY puppets! All you need is Sharpies and a sprinkle of imagination!

♻️📦Recycled 🎸Guitar 🖼Art

Turning newspaper and packaging materials into a piece of Art. This is a project Julia did when she was six years old. She had chosen the recycled materials and arranged all the pieces independently, making a guitar still life piece of art. This project was completely child-led! No adult supervision!

♻️📦Cardboard Mask

This mask is 👧🏻Julia's independent contribution to ♻️📦our Cardboard week!

All you need is 📦cardboard, ✂️️scissors, a glue gun, 🎨paints, and a ✨sprinkle of imagination!

Julia actually used 🎨 watercolor paints, which are non-toxic and amazingly brilliant to lay over the cardboard! You would think they are acrylic 😱

♻️ Recycled 🚽 TPP Penguin Craft

Another child-led ️craft in its entirety! We are having a ️heat wave so there is nothing more enticing than pulling a frozen Antarctica tray from a freezer! And since it's CARDBOARD week, Julia made this penguin from a recycled toilet paper roll. All you need is black construction paper, googly eyes and pink paper for the feet. (Julia, 8 yo, Summer camp 2018.)

♻️Recycled Land 🐢Tortoise

This is another of Julia's creations from a paper plate and recycled packaging. After coloring the plate green, apply plenty of glue to have the shell harden and with a little touch of googly eyes, your tortoise can be a perfect addition to your South America unit study. (Summer camp 2018, South America study.) See our 🌎Geography 101 Kids Activities 📽Series 🎇here.

♻️Recycled🍾Cork ☘️Shamrock 🎨Stamping Art/Craft

The next time you will be having 🍾champagne, save the ♻️corks and make 👆🏻this ☘️Shamrock craft! Just tie three corks with a green pipe cleaner to represent the leaves of a Shamrock. Then dip your "Shamrock stamp" into the green washable paint and apply to the paper. We used this tempera paint to draw a stem. For more St. Patrick's hands-on fun activities, see here ☘️St. Patrick's Day Kids Activities.