Have fun, create, learn, and help the planet with the young kids in your life through 50 colorful, enriching activities made from stuff you already have. With Recycle and Play, learn how to transform cardboard, bubble wrap, lids, containers, egg cartons, and other things that might otherwise be headed to a landfill into hours of engaging play at home. The fun, process-oriented projects invite children to be creative, explore senses, develop skills, and discover how things work, all while reinforcing the importance of reducing waste as part of a sustainable lifestyle. In this book, you’ll find tips on how to extend play and learning for each project as well as helpful hints to engage your kids to come up with fun additions and extensions of their own. While each of the projects includes clear step-by-step instructions and materials lists, you should feel free to adjust to your child’s interests and the materials you have on hand. Organized by the type of material used, the zero-waste projects include: Car Garage and Ramp made from toilet paper tubes and cardboard (Learning Skills: Fine motor skills, creative play, and color recognition) Mess-Free Bubble Wrap Painting (Learning Skills: Art, sensory exploration, creative skills, color recognition) Busy Board Lid Activity (Learning Skills: Fine motor skills, cognitive skills) Alligator Letter Feed made from egg cartons (Learning Skills: Letter recognition, fine motor skills) Milk Carton School Bus with family photos (Learning Skills: Social development, cognitive skills) Matching Memory Game made from wipe lids (Learning Skills: Cognitive skills, fine motor skills, memory, object recognition) Bond with your child, help them learn through play, and instill a lifelong respect for the environment with Recycle and Play.

Recycle and Play transforms what many might consider trash--cardboard, bubble wrap, egg cartons, or plastic wrap--into invitations for zero-waste playful learning.

Readers learn to reuse and recycle in a story told in verse.

***INCLUDES 12 CUT-OUT TEMPLATES!*** Exciting, Eco-Conscious Crafts with Stuff You Already Have Transform paper rolls, egg cartons, newspaper and cardboard into colorful decorations, amazing wearable masks, hats and jewelry or even sturdy desk organizers, puzzles and paint palettes. Get ready to unleash your imagination with 60 unique crafts—with something for all ages—including: Homemade Kaleidoscope Build Your Own Marble Maze Cool Superhero Mask Dinosaur Terrarium Indoor Mini-Garden Awesome Cardboard Castle Kimberly McLeod, creator of The Best Ideas for Kids®, provides a varied selection of budget-friendly, eco-conscious projects that are great for imaginary play, bedroom decorations, gift giving and more! You’ll be so proud of the projects you’ve created and customized with your own hands—and they are as fun to make as they are to play with!

What can we recycle? Who can sort the waste? What can we re-use? Helping with real tasks is a natural progression from pretend play, and is a crucial stage in a child's development. Achieving a shared goal encourages a sense of responsibility, and develops many skills useful in later life. Simple conversational text and lively illustrations are carefully designed to encourage further dialogue between reader and child.

“If you’ve ever been perplexed by the byzantine rules of recycling, you’re not alone…you’ll want to read Can I Recycle This?... An extensive look at what you can and cannot chuck into your blue bin.” —The Washington Post The first illustrated guidebook that answers the age-old question: Can I Recycle This? Since the dawn of the recycling system, men and women the world over have stood by their bins, holding an everyday object, wondering, "can I recycle this?" This simple question reaches into our concern for the environment, the care we take to keep our homes and our communities clean, and how we interact with our local government. Recycling rules seem to differ in every municipality, with exceptions and caveats at every turn, leaving the average American scratching her head at the simple act of throwing something away. Taking readers on a quick but informative tour of how recycling actually works (setting aside the propaganda we were all taught as kids), Can I Recycle This gives straightforward answers to whether dozens of common household objects can or cannot be recycled, as well as the information you need to make that decision for anything else you encounter. Jennie Romer has been working for years to help cities and states across America better deal with the waste we produce, helping draft meaningful legislation to help communities better process their waste and produce less of it in the first place. She has distilled her years of experience into this non-judgmental, easy-to-use guide that will change the way you think about what you throw away and how you do it.

The creator behind the blog Pink Stripey Socks brings her crafting talent to cardboard! With these easy-to-make, imagination-growing cardboard crafts, kids can put on a show, travel back in time, and even rocket to outer space!