Teaching Preschoolers About Recycling -

Teaching Preschoolers About Recycling

Affiliate Disclosure: “This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase using those links.”

Earth Day is April 22, and I think it is the perfect excuse to start teaching your preschoolers how to recycle, upcycle, and reuse if you haven’t started. This practice should happen every day, year-round, to build good habits that will carry through their entire lives.

Caring about the environment from a young age will make them more responsible adults, which could make a big difference in the future of our planet and all its inhabitants.

Dumping everything in a trash can, leaving the water running for a long time, or leaving cans and bottles at the beach is very easy, right? But being conscious of the environment and practicing ways to protect it isn’t that easy. It should become a habit ingrained in us, a natural part of our lives, and how we live them.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case for most people worldwide. That’s why our planet is screaming for help, and we are losing tons of species. In other words, we are killing our home.

That is why we must teach our kids the importance of recycling and how to do it correctly. It is not enough to show them which bin to use for trash and which one for recycling materials. They also need to learn other steps, such as cleaning bottles before putting them in the recycling bin, which plastics can be recycled, and how to use reusable containers, thermos, and straws.

I have included a FREE 14-page recycling sorting activities pack that you can download at the end of this post.

Benefits of Teaching Recycling

Teaching our preschoolers how to recycle has multiple benefits, such as:

Learn to Care About the Environment. For me, this is the most important one. As mentioned before, if our children become conscious of the importance of caring for the planet and how to do so as a habit, they will do the same for their children, which, hopefully, will change the way humans act and avoid the practices that are damaging our home before it is too late.

Improve Their Memory. Remembering which materials can be recycled, which practices to avoid, and what to do in different situations will help them retain important information more easily in other areas of life.

Improve Fine Motor and Coordination Skills. Dividing, recycling, and reusing materials requires hand use and coordination to complete the tasks involved.
Learn Science. Learning about recycling also teaches our children important scientific facts, such as the different types of species and how they are connected, how climate change affects ecosystems and its consequences, and where our food comes from.

Improve Their Creativity. Thinking about how to reuse recycled materials in new ways to create art, for example, is a great way to develop their critical thinking and creativity.

Involve Parents. Involving parents in this process will give your classroom materials to work with if you create a drop-off station for cardboard tubes and boxes, plastic bottles, old kitchen utensils, clothes, etc. It will also help your parents remember the importance of recycling and encourage them to do the same at home.

Fun Activities to Teach Recycling

The only way we can successfully teach preschoolers how to recycle is to make it fun. When kids find activities boring and too difficult, they don’t pay attention and don’t want to participate.

Some of the activities you can do are:

Create a recycling station. Gather at least a couple of large bins: one for trash and another for recycling materials. Involve the children in making signs with construction paper, drawings, or stickers for each bin. Tape the signs on the bins, and teach children how to use them appropriately.

Recycling station by Cottonbro Studio from Pexels.

Promote a donation campaign. Have your children decorate a large box to collect donations, and invite families to bring in clothes, shoes, purses, and other items in good condition. It is a good way for families to participate and for children to see that discarded items can be reused by someone in greater need.

Sorting and recycling. Once you create the recycling station, help your children sort materials into the bins you set up. For example, paper in the paper bin, plastic in the plastic bin, and so on. You can involve your family by asking them to bring recycling items (boxes, toilet paper tubes, soda cans, plastic bottle caps, etc.) so you have a nice variety to sort.

Glass recycle bin by Cottonbro Studio from Pexels. — Glass recycling bin by Cottonbro Studio from Pexels.

Plastic recycle bin by Lara Jameson from Pexels.

Doing art with recycled materials. Include recycling materials such as newspapers, magazines, labels, boxes, plastic utensils, etc. in your art center, and let children use them to their heart’s content to create art.

Art created with recycle materials by Artem Podrez from Pexels. — Art created with recycled materials by Artem Podrez from Pexels.

Recycled stampers. You can create stampers with sponges, scraps of vegetables and fruits, bottles, toilet paper tubes, etc., and invite the children to use them to make prints on paper with tempera paint.

Create handmade puzzles. You can use cereal box covers, pictures from old calendars, and even cards. Glue them to cardstock, laminate them if you can, and cut them into puzzle pieces.

Include used materials in your Block and Housekeeping areas. You can bring egg cartons, different boxes, plastic bottles, paper towels, toilet paper rolls, plastic cups, etc., and invite your children to use them during playtime in the Housekeeping Area or to create structures such as buildings and bridges in the Block Area.

Create activities that involve reusing, reducing, and recycling. For example, you can also write letters on top of bottle caps and give them to the children to copy words, spell their names, count, sort them by color and type, or make patterns. Or use toilet paper rolls or plastic plates, and have the children use honey and bird seeds to create bird feeders. Or provide cans, egg cartons, or small jars to make flower vases, planters, or seed starters. You can find tons of ideas on Pinterest and BuzzFeed.

Old cans container garden by Bernard Hermant from Unsplash

Go on a field trip. Taking your preschoolers to a trash field or a recycling plant will help them see for themselves how much waste has accumulated and better understand the magnitude of the problem.

Program a trash collection campaign. Take your preschoolers to the beach or the park with their families to collect any trash you find and put it in trash bags.

Student and teacher picking up garbage at the beach by Ron Lach from Pexels. — Student and teacher picking up garbage at the river bend by Ron Lach from Pexels.

Families picking up garbage at the beach by Ron Lach from Pexels.

Have your preschoolers watch videos about recycling. The best way to learn is to use all the senses, and YouTube has some interesting videos on this theme that your children can watch. For example, Recycling Plastic, Glass, and Paper; Learn how to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle; or Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – What can kids do?

Sing songs with your kids. You can find some on YouTube, for example, Reduce Reuse Recycle Song, Reduce Reuse Recycle Song for Kids, and The Recycling Song for Kids.

Start a garden. You can use vegetable and fruit scraps, such as the roots of seasoning plants like cilantro and parsley, avocado, tomato, pumpkin seeds, or potato pieces, to create new plants with your children.

Strawberry boxes seed starters by Artem Podrez from Pexels.

Create special lesson plans. You can create lessons to educate your children about related topics, such as where paper comes from and the consequences of deforestation, the damage plastic causes to the ocean ecosystem, how to create a compost bin and its benefits, what types of products are environmentally friendly, etc.
Use photos of recyclable and non-recyclable items. You can then use these photos to explain to your preschoolers which items can be recycled and which cannot, and why, and to have your children decide and sort whether each item in the photos should go in the recycling bin or trash can.

Other Ideas

You can find amazing ideas for recycling, reducing, and reusing online. Below are some of them:

Art

Create a bird feeder using a plastic bottle from Natural Beach Living.
Make a gift box using a recycled plastic bottle from Red Ted Art.
Make new crayons by melting pieces of old ones from Little Bins for Little Hands.
Create masks from recyclable materials from Pickle Bums.
Make egg carton bird masks from Blue Bird Wood.
Try a milk carton pen pot from Blue Bear Wood.

Math

Do the reduce, reuse, and recycle sorting activity from Fluffy Tots.
Count using a recycling bin counting activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.
Solve recycling truck number puzzles from JDaniel4‘s Mom.
Make a cardboard math learning board from Hello Wonderful.

Literacy

Make recycled paper alphabet books from 123Homechool4Me.
Sight word game with recycling cups from 123Homechool4Me.
Crazy Roads sight word game from 123Homeschool4Me.

Science

Gelatin bioplastic science project from Steam Powered Family.
Paper versus plastic experiment from Teach Me Mommy.
Earth Day recycling activity from A Little Pinch of Perfect.
STEAM activities with recycled newspapers from Wise Owl Factory.
Air, land, and water pollution from Natural Beach Living.

Books About Recycling

There are many books that you can use, both fictional and non-fictional. You can find some at your local library and used bookstore. I personally love Amazon because you can get anything fast. These are some books I like. I added my affiliate Amazon links to make it easier for you; just click the titles.

Recycle! by Gail Gibbons. This educational book offers facts to explain the recycling process from start to finish, focusing on five different types of materials: paper, glass, aluminum cans, plastic, and polystyrene, and includes helpful tips for cleaning up our environment.

Why Should I Recycle? by Jen Green. This story answers children’s questions about recycling with amusing, full-color illustrations on every page and includes a note for parents and teachers with suggestions for using the book most effectively.

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle with Liam, the Smart Rabbit by Azaliyah Schulz. From thrilling and adventurous to educational and engaging, this story follows Liam as he learns about plastic pollution. It motivates and empowers readers to reduce, reuse, and recycle to make our World a greener, cleaner place.

The Life of a Little Cardboard Box by IglooBooks. This book introduces children to the magic of recycling and its profound impact on our world through the journey of a cardboard box from its beginnings to its transformation into something new.

My First Book About Reuse, Reduce, and Recycle by Duopress Labs. This is a beautiful introduction for children to the simple steps we can all take to help the environment while helping them develop a connection with the natural world.

Recycling is Fun by Charles Ghigna. Children will learn that sorting recycling and giving new life to old things could be fun and will help the environment

Pin It For Later

If you are in a rush and don’t have time to read the post and download the printable, but want to save it for later, pin it to one of your Pinterest boards.

I hope you enjoy these ideas and that they help you have fun explaining recycling and its purpose to your kiddos. To get the FREE pack, just click the link below and enter your information for an immediate download.

Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.

Love,

P.S. Please let me know if any of these ideas worked for you, and if you have others, I would love to hear them. There’s no such thing as doing too much to save our planet.