I have a confession. I absolutely love random stuffs. Bottled caps, cereal boxes, paper towel rolls, eggs carton and the list goes on. At the back of my mind, everytime I want to throw it away, the plan always backfired!. “Oooh my daughter would love this” “another sensory play for the kids” “this can be another DIY or art and crafts project” I can think of various reasons. My husband thinks I am a hoarder. Sometimes i am worried too! But to be honest, I try to keep everything in just one big container. So i will limit my recycled material collections to just that.

Exploring and creating with recycled materials do have its own benefits. Recycled, or “found,” materials represent an abundant, sustainable and affordable resource for young children’s creative self-expression. It is a great reseources to generate creative thinking and problem solving.

With this open ended materials,children’s physical development is enhanced when they explore found materials. They not only build their eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills but also their ability to discern sensory input including sight, touch and hearing as they notice how found materials look, feel and sound. Children also gain important knowledge about tools and materials as they learn techniques and practice skills like joining, adhering, cutting, stapling, taping and gluing.

So for today, I am sharing an idea on what you can do with bottled caps. This idea is suitable for toddler age 2 years and above

Matching colours using bottled caps

What you need:

-colourful dot stickers. (If you don’t have it, you can just colour or paint your bottled caps)

-bottled caps

-cardboard or cardstock

-penknife/scissor

-strong adhesive glue or tape

Instructions:

Choose what colours you want to introduce to your child.

I chose 9 basic colours. For every colours, I took 2 each. One to be sticked on the bottled caps and the other one on the cardboard.

Once you sticked your desired coloured stickers on the board, glue the lid on top of the stickers.

Important: you need to use strong glue for this.

The first time I made this activity, I only used normal tape and it doesn’t work because everytime my daughter try to screw the bottled cap onto the lid, the lid came off! So she gets frustrated and refused to continue playing. So yeah, use a strong hot glue to make sure the lid is intact.

Invite your child to match the coloured bottled caps with the same colour stickers underneath the lids.

Tips:

-Expand your child’s vocabulary by talking to her while playing. Example : “Where is the red colour, show me the red one!” “Red in arabic is ahmar, can you find ahmar?” Or “What is your favourite colour” etc

-“I spy” game. You can invite your child to play this game, for example you can say “I spy with my little eye a small blue bottled cap” and ask her to match it with the sticker on the board. Next, ask her to find other blue coloured things around the room.

-If your child is not ready for colours matching yet due to his age, allow him to just screw on and off the bottled caps. And at the same time, you can just say to him “Oooh is that green you are holding? Oh amazing, green is my favourite colour, trees are green” Even if he seems unresponsive, it is okay, the child’s mind is like a sponge absorbing even if it is subsconciously.

And remember kids learn best when they are having fun and in a relaxed environment. So have fun doing this activity with your kidlets!

Do you have any recycled material projects that you have done before? I would love to hear from you!