Top tips: Recycling Christmas Materials
Learning about the environment and sustainability is an essential life skill. Talk to children about recycling and how this means you are taking something you don’t want or need anymore and turning them into new things, and how it helps keep our environment clean and healthy.
Top tips for art inspiration
- If you haven’t already got recycling bins, then make your own using boxes or crates. Add a label to show what type of recycling it will store
- Ask parents to bring in any unwanted Christmas items, e.g. Christmas cards, boxes, bags or wrapping paper, decorations
- Also ask families for old equipment that may have been replaced by new gifts, e.g. kitchen equipment (for your mud kitchen and role play area), beauty equipment, e.g. hair dryers and straighteners (for role play)
- You may also want to ask families for any unwanted gifts or parts of gift sets that will also be useful, e.g. toiletry bags, pinecones etc
- Ensure any electric equipment is made safe, e.g. plugs removed or made safe, cables closed off, any glass removed, sharp ends made safe, and items are checked for safety and choking hazards. If it is not possible to make it safe, then the item should be removed from the collection
- Collect all your recycling items together and gather the children to look at what you have. Discuss children’s experiences of recycling at home with recycling their rubbish and the bins they use etc.
- Ask the children to go through the items and make suggestions for how they may find a new purpose for each item
- Discuss how you are going to dispose of any items that can’t be used in the setting, e.g. local jumble sales, donations to charity shops.
NDNA products to help you with this tip
Nursery leadership and management training – Face to face training
Disclaimer: Activities with children must always be risk assessed, including for allergies or choking. Children must always have adequate supervision. Resources and materials must always be appropriate for children’s age and stage of development.
- MyNDNA
- Tips
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