Activity
Recycled Decor
All those plastic bags hiding under your sink can be repurposed into a fun and exciting decoration your child can hang in her room! Your child can make lots and lots of these simple puffy balls in all different sizes and create a stunning display of floating glowing balls, which also reuse those plastic bags!
Grade
Subject
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What You Need:
- Scissors
- Cardboard
- Drinking glass or cups
- Smaller glass
- Pencil
- Scissors
- 2-3 plastic garbage bags
- String
What You Do:
- Start by helping your child create the base for her garbage bag puffy balls by finding a piece of cardboard to use. The side of an old box works great!
- Invite your child to trace around the outside of a glass creating a circle. Now she can trace around it again, creating two circles.
- Using a smaller glass she can create an inner circle, about two inches in diameter, inside the first circle. She should do this in the second circle too.
- Offer your child scissors and encourage her to cut the circles out, creating two circles with wholes in the middle – just like donuts!
- Now she can use the scissors to cut strips out of the plastic bags about one inch in diameter.
- Invite your child to place the two doughnut-shaped cardboard circles together and begin wrapping them with the strips of plastic bags. Encourage her to keep wrapping the circles until she can’t fit any more through the middle.
- Now she can use the scissors to cut around the outside edge of the plastic bag, sliding the scissors in between the two pieces of cardboard. Encourage her to work slowly and take her time, honing her hand-eye coordination and concentration skills!
- To finish her garbage bag puff ball, she can cut a length of string and tie it around the middle of the ball, pulling it tight between the two pieces of cardboard, and then gently pulling the cardboard sides revealing the puffy ball!
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See this activity in a set:
10 Irresistable Eco Activities: Get Crafting!