I always try to have a handy supply of cardboard tubes, bottle tops, cereal boxes etc stored away for a rainy day. These came in very handy last week when my husband challenged my children to make a special trophy for an upcoming family sporting competition.
I sat down with my 3 kids and we all had a search through the bag of recycling supplies and we talked about how we wanted the trophy to look and what we were going to use to make it. As well as the recycling supplies, I had also laid out some spare foil, crepe paper and some paints inorder to up-cycle the recycling goods into something new and shiny.
My toddler had great fun searching through the boxes, examining the bottle tops and crumpling up the foil and crepe paper, which gave the older boys chance to paint and wrap the boxes and cardboard tube they wanted to use for the top of the trophy.
Once we had assembled the main body of the trophy using glue my 4 year old was then in charge of decorating the face using googly eyes and a sticky sparkly gem, my 6 year old was in charge or writing “winner” onto a sticky label and my 2 year old assisted me in sticking on the bottle tops and a few more sparkly gems.
Needless to say their Daddy was very impressed with the result and he even managed to win the trophy in the family sporting competition. so it’s pride of place in our house now until the next sporting challenge!
So next time your sorting out your recycling save a few things to one side and see what your kids can make them into. Maybe they’ll make robots or spaceships or build houses or racing cars. You can either set them a theme or just set their imaginations free and ask them to come up with something by themselves.