Earth Day Sensory Bin

Taking care of our environment, conserving energy and water, and learning about pollution are all ongoing topics in my household.

In my opinion, kids are never too young to start to learn about the importance of recycling, turning off lights when they leave the room, or turning the faucet off when brushing their teeth.

My 3.5 year old son, Onetime has shown particular interest in learning about clean water and electricity and where they come from. I think a lot of his interest began last year when I created two different Earth Day sensory bins for him to explore – which I’m going to share with you today!

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This activity focuses on sorting garbage into Trash, Recyclables, and Compost and provides so many opportunities to teach young children about the importance of reducing waste, recycling, and taking care of Mother Earth. It also includes a free printable sheet of pictures of different types of waste that can be used for a variety of learning activities.

Ocean Garbage Sorting Bin:  A Lesson on Recycling, Composting, and Waste

This bin really focuses on sorting waste.  I chose to have a “water” (shredded paper) filled bin because I wanted to talk to Onetime about how our oceans are being polluted.

Have you heard of the Great Pacific garbage patch?  If not – check this out.

To make this bin, you will need:

• Shredded blue paper (alternately you could use blue rice)
• Some marine-type toy boats or animals if you like
• 3 containers for waste with labels for trash, compost, and recycling
• 12  large metal paper clips
• Printout of 12 pieces of garbage (click here for your FREE copy)
• A “fishing pole” with magnet on the end (ours was homemade!)

Prep and Setup:

• Print and cut out the 12 pictures of garbage items.  Print them on cardstock to make them more sturdy.
• Slide a large paper clip onto each picture.

* Fill the bin with shredded paper, and scatter the pictures throughout.  Label the 3 waste bins.
* Make your fishing pole with any stick, string, and a magnet strong enough to pick up a paper clip.

Onetime really enjoyed and fully understood this activity.  He LOVED using the magnetic fishing pole to fish for garbage out of the “ocean” and when I explained that his job was to put the waste where it belonged – he seemed to take this very seriously.

For each picture he fished out, I would label the picture and ask him where it went – reminding him of the bin names.  E.g.  “You caught a pop bottle.  Does that belong in the recycling, the waste bin, or the compost bin?” In fact, I was astounded that he was able to look at each of the 12 pictures and decide where they should go!  The lightbulb was the only picture that stumped him!

After all the sorting and ocean play, we didn’t stop there, but went on to create a Landfill and Recycling Factory to take the different kinds of waste to, but I figured that was too much to put in one post! Click on the link above or the picture below to check that out.

I’d love to hear what you think about this bin.  How are you teaching your kids to take care of our Earth?

To raising the future stewards of our beautiful planet,