3 Fun Recycled Art Projects for Young Children

It's never too early to teach children to recycle and with some creativity they can create a treasure from throwaway trash. Creating art from recycled materials is very inexpensive and easy to do. Children can express their creativity by using cardboard boxes, orphaned socks, old CD's, aluminum cans, newspapers, and fabric scraps-to name a few. Set up a recycle box at home with safe materials that can be used for art projects. You'll be happy you did on rainy, snowy, and days that the kids can't go outside to play.

Here are 3 fun recycled art projects for young children to try:

Recycled Rainbow Streamers

Materials:

• index card • crepe paper streamers (saved from parties) • stapler • music

What to do:

1. Invite children to fold the index card in half. Consider using a colored card or letting children color a white one with markers.

2. Place one end of each crepe paper streamer inside the fold of the card.

3. Staple the card shut.

How to use:

1. Put on your favorite music and enjoy dancing with the streamers. Do it in front of a mirror-see the streamers wave. It's a great way to get exercise inside on a rainy day!

Empty Box Sculpture

Materials:

• all sizes of gift boxes • white tacky glue or masking tape • paint, crayons, markers (optional)

What to do:

1. Invite children to build their own sculpture by gluing or taping gift boxes together.

2. Encourage them to decorate the sculpture with paint, crayons, or markers.

How to use:

1. Challenge children to identify the shape and size of various boxes by using words like: big, little, tiny, large, small, tall, short, wide, long, square and rectangle.

2. Encourage each child to use a variety of boxes to add to the creativity of their piece of art.

Paper Collage Characters

Materials:

• glue *sheets of construction paper *Zoophabets by Robert Tallon *scraps of cut and torn paper (colored construction paper, newspaper, wallpaper, gift wrap)

What to do:

1. Adult reads Zoophabets aloud to the children.

2. Create characters from torn and cut papers.

3. Glue characters on paper.

4. Invite children to name each character and adult writes its name on the paper.

5. Discuss where the character lives and what it eats and write down what the child says.

6. On other days make more collage characters. When there is a character for each letter in the alphabet, stack the pictures and make a book.

7. Place it in a place where the entire family can read it.

Next time the children say, "I'm bored"-bring out the recycle box and glue. Create exciting recycled art projects from collages to sculptures-there is no limit to creativity!

Source:

Personal experiences at home and in the classroom.