Preschool Science: Recycling

These preschool programs I'm doing last 45 minutes and are for kids ages 3-6 years. However, I always have some younger and older siblings and "drop in" attendees outside those age ranges.

I started off with the hello song The Learning Groove uses on their cds. Its fun and easy to teach, and while you name all the kids' names, the way the song works it doesn't take up 10 minutes to greet each child. If I have an uneven amount, I say hello to myself, to the grownups, to moms, to dads, to grandmas, etc.

Cover Art for Round like a ball!
Then we read Round Like a Ball by Lisa Campbell Ernst. I had intended to read The EARTH Book by Todd Parr, but I didn't make my request early enough so it didn't make it in the delivery. Round does have a nice list at the end about what we can do to help take care of the earth and mentions recycling and composting, which we talked about.

After the group portion, I let the caregivers and kids work their way at their own pace through three activities:

1. Worms Exploration
Having worms in the library went over waaaay better than I thought it was going to. From the minute I set the little creatures out on the table there were kids clustered around it watching them move, talking about what they felt like, exclaiming when the worms were trying to escape the plates, weighing them, looking at them with the magnifying glasses*, and measuring them using rulers and unifix cubes. Best (and first, lol) $4 on worms I ever spent.

This picture is blurry, but the expression is perfect!

*The magnifiers I have are discontinued (boo!), but they are similar to the ones included in this set. They are very durable and definitely hold up to the (ab)use from small hands.

2. Recycling Sort Boxes
I bought a set of Learn to Recycle Activity Boxes from Oriental Trading Company. They are a very study cardboard construction-- I was pleasantly surprised at the quality! Lots of talking and vocabulary at this station!


3. "Reused" Collages
I remembered seeing pictures on Pinterest of flowers made with the bottoms of plastic bottles. I added in some cut up pipecleaners and a confetti mix leftover from other projects to add some sparkle and shine to the collages. This was a lot of fun. I will do this one with my storytime kids in the fall.

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1 comments :

  1. I think that the recycling lesson is such a fun, and important lesson to use to teach preschoolers around science. Kids need to understand about recycling...its important for the future..and taking care of the planet etc.. good lesson idea. thnx
    Preschool Learning Online also has a lot of great lesson plan ideas. I have found Pinterest searches to be a gold mine of useful ideas for teaching kids as well.

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