Earth Week: Recycling Cut and Paste Activity

One thing we have talked about this week is how to take good care of our Earth.  I brought in examples of items that can be recycled and explained to the children that recycling means taking something used and turning it into something new.  A quick Google search on Sunday afternoon led me to a set of worksheets that I was able to adapt for use in my classroom as a cut and paste project.  As is often the case, I didn't like the layout of these worksheets, especially for preschoolers.  However, a few minutes of copying, cutting, and pasting resulted in an activity that I feel is appropriate for preschool-aged children.  Keep in mind that in a Montessori setting, children would only do this work if THEY choose to do it.

HERE is a link to where I found the pages I adapted.  I used pages 4 and 5 from this link.  The photo below shows the worksheets as they looked when I printed them.  They are too busy and cluttered for my liking.  So...........I chopped off the parts I didn't like and combined the two pages to set up an independent cut and paste activity.

Here you can see how I changed the pages.  I simply cut off the extra words from the "sorting" paper and copied it.  Lots of white space on a page makes it easier for children to visually process what they need to do.  On the left side you can see that I just cut and pasted 4 sets of cutting pictures onto one "master" sheet to conserve paper.  I then cut these apart to place in a basket as you will see further down.

Here is how the activity is set up.  As with many of my science activities, the children will sit at the two white tables to complete this work.  The needed materials are on the shelf above and on the top of the tables.

This tray holds the "sorting" paper.

And the basket holds the cutting pictures.

 

  
To do this work the child takes a sorting paper and a page of cutting pictures.  They use the scissors to cut apart the pictures and sort them onto the sorting page.  Once a teacher has checked their sorting they use their glue sticks and gluing mats to adhere the pictures to the page.  I forgot to take a photo of a completed paper, but I'm sure you get the idea.
 

Comments

[Amie Jordan]

What a practical and great activity!

[Laura]

How fun and what a great idea! Thanks so much forsharing it!

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[LINDA]

Speaking of Earth Week...I have a great snack idea I do with my Montessori children. We take bread and use a cup to cut it into a circle. Take the circle and use blue and green colored cream cheese to spread on it to make a planet earth (use food coloring on CC). Then take brocolli to decorate as the "trees" on your planet earth and raisins for rocks/mountains. Lots of food prep steps with this snack. Hope this helps out a fellow Montessori teacher.