Earth Day

Earth Day Projects with Toilet Paper Rolls

If you are like us you toss a lot of empty toilet paper rolls into the recycling every month. But did you know there are a lot of great ways to reuse them? Including fun crafts with your kids? Here are some easy and fun crafts to get your creative juices running this Earth Day.

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I am not always the most crafty person. I see the toilet paper rolls going into the recycling but I don’t always think of ways to reuse them, and sometimes I admit it is easier to just toss them. But kids see them in a completely different way.

Earth Day Projects with Toilet Paper Rolls

It has been a while since we have created crafts with toilet paper rolls but my kids have two favorite things to do with them: castles and binoculars.

Castles are easy. You have empty toilet paper rolls and you stack them. We lived in a house with a very large bathroom counter for a while. We used to make castles with them, all the time. I would make a different one a couple of times a day.

You can take that idea, maybe cover them with colorful paper to add that pop of color for making your own castles and structures with them. These could be the cheapest blocks you have ever had for your kids.

Pen Pal Year Long Writing Kit

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Kids love to look through tubes of any kind. Why not make some binoculars with toilet paper rolls? All you need is a stapler to keep them together and you are finished. Cover them with paper, stickers and whatever else you might have in your craft station.

Then take your kids and their new binoculars on a Bear Hunt or a scavenger hunt.

Earth Day Projects with Toilet Paper Rolls

Crafts you can do with your kids using recycling materials like toilet paper rolls.

Bottle Rocket

Simple vinegar and baking soda can turn into a fun time with these bottle rockets.

Toilet Paper Roll Bunnies

Use toilet paper rolls and leftover construction paper from other projects to make these cute little Easter Bunnies.

Turkey Toilet Roll Craft for Thanksgiving

These toilet paper rolls and paper plates are just what your kids want to make in the days leading to thanksgiving. Or maybe they make it into a different type of bird for Earth Day.

Play Food Carrot Craft | So Easy to Make at Home!

Photo Credit: platein28.com

If your kids like to play with pretend food, this carrot craft is for you! Use toilet paper rolls to make these adorable play food carrots!

Easy DIY Rainstick Craft from a Paper Towel Roll-Great for All Ages

Photo Credit: craftingwithkids.net

The Best Recycled Bird Feeders using Toilet Paper Rolls

Photo Credit: ourwabisabilife.com

Kids are going to love making these Recycled Bird Feeders using Toilet Paper Rolls. Easy to make and inexpensive, these bird feeders are perfect for a simple afternoon craft. Make these bird feeders all year long to help your feathered friends.

Toilet Paper Roll Butterfly Craft for Kids

Photo Credit: twokidsandacoupon.com

Help your kids create cute and creative creations with this toilet paper roll butterfly craft for kids. Here’s how to make them!

Earth Day – What Can We Do With Our Kids?

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Earth Day is an annual event celebrated on April 22. Worldwide, various events are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. What can you so to help the environment? More importantly how can you teach your children to? Role modeling great behavior is the first and best way to teach your kids any type of behavior, including those for protecting Earth.

This Earth Day we will be planting some more seeds, I can’t wait to get some more herbs growing, as well get some flowers growing for the bees and for us as well.

Earth Day

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The 3 Rs

Reduce. Recycle. Reuse.

We recycle here in our small town with curb side pick up. That means we have a small recycling bin in our home, that we then empty into a bigger one that gets picked up biweekly. Our kids are still learning what goes where, but they are learning, and my husband and I are role modeling that behavior by using it as well.

We also return bottles for refunds. In fact it is Brookland’s chore to wash any out and take them down stairs where we keep them before returning them.

Children’s clothing is something that gets reused in this house, girls clothing in particular as they go from the oldest to the middle child. We also reuse jars and boxes. We tend to save a lot of our boxes that we get from online orders for sending parcels to family for birthdays and Christmas, as well as in our own home at Christmas to make wrapping a little easier.

Nature

Show them how they can enjoy being out in nature instead of sitting in the house playing video games or watching TV. Together as a family plant some seeds. Whether they are seeds to grow flowers to enjoy or for the bees (a whole lesson right here folks!), or maybe you want to plant some seeds to grow some food (and another whole lesson right here too).

Litter

My oldest hates seeing litter, I mean HATES it. One day someone stopped on the corner and dropped out a few bottles, and she was ready to chase them down! Needless to say we will be out there picking up litter this Earth Day.

If you’re child isn’t like my oldest, and I think most of Saskatchewan isn’t, then teach your children what to do with their garbage when you’re not home. Most public parks and store have garbage cans outside for you to use. Teach them to simply hold on to their garbage until they see a trash can.

How do you teach your children about protecting the environment?

Earth Day Books to Learn About Saving Our Earth

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Earth Day is April 22nd, every year. While this day is the one day dedicated to celecrating the Earth, and thinking about our choices, we should be teaching our kids, and role modeling it it ourselves everyday.

Teaching our kids about reusing, reducing, and recycling.

Earth Day Books

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Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth – Not only is composting becoming more common in households and residential gardens, but many school gardens feature compost piles, too. But how do you start a compost pile? Learn all about it in this book.

Earth Day Every Day – On Earth Day, we find ways to help the Earth. Trina plants trees with her class. She forms an Earth Day club with her friends. What can you do to make every day Earth Day?

The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle: A Story About Recycling – Peek into this diary of a plastic bottle as it goes on a journey from the refinery plant, to the manufacturing line, to the store shelf, to a garbage can, and finally to a recycling plant where it emerges into it’s new life…

How to Help the Earth-by the Lorax – After explaining how the trash in a wastbasket ultimately ends up in a landfill or incinerator, the Lorax suggests realistic ways children can reduce waste, such as by carrying a lunch box.

Fancy Nancy: Every Day Is Earth Day – Being green is important to Nancy—so important that she wants her family to take care of the Earth morning, noon, and night!

Why Should I Recycle? – Mr. Jones is a teacher who sets a good example for kids by separating his trash for recycling. When he takes them on a class trip to a recycling plant they learn the value of recycling.

Don’t Throw That Away!: A Lift-the-Flap Book about Recycling and Reusing – You can keep that trash and reuse it in all kinds of wonderful ways!

Earth Day – By reading about Earth Days history and purpose as well as how it is celebrated the world over, students will learn that there is more to the holiday than just recycling and planting trees.

Earth-Friendly Crafts: Clever Ways to Reuse Everyday Items – What do you do with old toys, clothes, and other stuff? Instead of throwing them away, get creative and see what crafts you can make!

The EARTH Book – This book includes lots of easy, smart ideas on how we can all work together to make the Earth feel good.

What books would you recommend we add to this list of books?

Mini Greenhouse Gardening with Kids

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Earlier this week we planted some seeds in a mini greenhouse. Thought it was rather fitting to use recycled plastic eggs from Easter, talking about the three R’s and protecting the environment. Dual learning taking place here people. We have already started our seeds for our family garden, you can see how we introduced gardening to our kids here.

Mini Greenhouse Gardening with Kids

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We planted some seeds in these containers from Easter. They were filled with candies, but we couldn’t throw them away because they could come in handy later on. And they did. We filled the bottom half with dirt, planted seeds and watered them.

We popped the cover on them and placed them on the sunniest window ledge we have.

Within a few days, we had our first sprouts growing in our mini greenhouse. We’re excited to get our flowers growing, and for the last frost to be done and over with so we can get them moved outside into a bigger containers where we can share them the butterflies and bumblebees.

Also, due to the container being clear, we’ll be able to see the roots.

UPDATED: These are after just 2 weeks! The one above is the one that was originally in this post. The one below is Brookland’s flowers, which had a longer germination period. But are growing now as well.

Added information for Earth Day:

Greenhouse Effect

A greenhouse is a structure completely covered, usually walls and a ceiling, made of transparent material, such as glass or plastic, in which plants requiring regulated climatic conditions are grown.

While we’re talking greenhouses you can also talk about greenhouse effect… which is solar energy absorbed at Earth’s surface is radiated back into the atmosphere as heat. As the heat makes its way through the atmosphere and back out to space, greenhouse gases absorb much of it.

Talk about the 3 R’s.

Recycling. Reusing. Reducing. We reused our plastic containers from Easter as our greenhouses. We also reduced waste by not throwing the container in the garbage (or recycling).

Different Ways to Garden

What if I told you there’s different methods than a typical garden uses that would lighten the load all while giving you more vegetables? Here is a great course to help you get started gardening with your family and get the most bang out of your garden. It is a complete gardening course designed to help out anyone, even if you have given up on gardening in the past.

Earth Day Crafts and Activities

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Over the past couple weeks, I have been talking to my girls about all things Earth Day-related. The three R’s, with a big focus on reusing. At six and almost four, I’m not expecting them to remember everything that I tell them, just exposing them to it. Crafts and activities reusing items is the perfect way to do this.

Earth Day Crafts and Activities

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We’ve read Don’t Throw That Away!, got some great ideas for reusing common everyday items. We also read Why Do We Recycle?, This book is great for learning about recycling instead of throwing garbage on the ground, in the ocean, and such. I have one more book to read this morning before school: Fancy Nancy: Every Day Is Earth Day, we love Fancy Nancy.

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We have done a few crafts too!

Painting with Toilet Paper Tubes

I took some toilet paper rolls and cut different lengths and sized slits in the bottom of a few. Some packing paper I saved from Walmart online orders, and paint, and we had a fun little craft.

Recycled Materials Art - Toilet Paper Rolls

Painting with Old Markers

Another fun activity we did reusing items that would normally be tossed right away was painting with markers.

We took some drying out markers that normally would have been tossed away and put them in a little water. Took some more of the packing paper and drew a beautiful picture!

You also can have some fun with the water leftover. If you put each color into a different cup to keep the colors separate, or put them together as we did to have some “rainbow” color.

You can check out some other great Earth Day ideas on Pinterest.

Earth Day

Earth Day Projects with Toilet Paper Rolls

Earth Day Projects with Toilet Paper Rolls

Pen Pal Year Long Writing Kit

Earth Day Projects with Toilet Paper Rolls

Bottle Rocket

Toilet Paper Roll Bunnies

Turkey Toilet Roll Craft for Thanksgiving

Play Food Carrot Craft | So Easy to Make at Home!

Easy DIY Rainstick Craft from a Paper Towel Roll-Great for All Ages

The Best Recycled Bird Feeders using Toilet Paper Rolls

Toilet Paper Roll Butterfly Craft for Kids

Similar posts you may be interested in:

Earth Day – What Can We Do With Our Kids?