Simple Recycling Experiment

Recycling can be fun when you start experimenting with the many ways you can reuse products. Homeschooling parents and teachers can implement these strategies to create an awareness about recycling.

Items You Will Need for These Projects:

1. 2 Liter Plastic Soda Bottle
2. Scissors
3. String
4. Sticks
5. Bird Seed
6. Coffee Can
7. Brown Paper Grocery Bags
8. Plastic Grocery Bags
9. Plastic Cool Whip Containers
10. Your Imagination

Beginning Teacher Instructions:

Explain to your students the concept of recycling. Recycling is anything you use a second time. You can use it a second time for a different purpose than the first time you used it. You are going to show the children several projects that demonstrate this concept and then ask them to go home and for homework come up with some more ways to recycle every day household items.

Project #1: A Bird Feeder

1. Take a plastic two liter soda bottle and cut some holes in it. The holes can be different sizes and all around the bottle.

2. Place some sticks from outside through the holes. Make sure these sticks are long enough that birds can perch themselves on the sticks.

3. Fill the soda bottle with bird seed. The birds can peck the food out through the left over holes.

4. Tie a string around the neck of the soda bottle and then around a tree limb. Make sure it is secure so it doesn't fall when a bird lands on it.

Project #2: Trash Bags

1. Recycle grocery store plastic bags by using them as trash bags in your bathroom or bedroom trash cans.

2. When you clean your room use a plastic grocery bag to gather all of the items you no longer want. Drop them off at a local thrift store.

Project #3: Storage Containers

1. Use your plastic Cool Whip containers as storage bins. You can keep your hair ties, dinner leftovers, or cat food in there.

2. Use a coffee can to store your money. Cut a slit in the plastic lid that is big enough to drop your coins in.

Project #4: Wrappings

1. Use brown paper grocery bags to cover your school books and keep them in tip top shape.

2. Use brown paper grocery bags to wrap gifts to send through the mail. They are smoother and easier to write on sometimes than boxes. Plus they don't weigh as much which saves you on postage.

*Encourage the class to continue thinking of ways they can use items in their house a second time. Have them go home and do 3 of their own projects. They can get some help from their parents if they need to. They can bring the ideas in and share them with the class.