Ways to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Plastic Caps & Giveaway Reminder

Well, if your family is anything like ours, you probably drink lots of milk and juice.

We go through so many containers and always have a plethora of caps / lids from the various drink containers.

Well, in the spirit of upcoming Earth Day, I thought that I would throw out some great ways to do your part by doing one of the three R's for the Earth, so here is my top ten list for plastic caps:

1. Use them for game pieces for checkers, tic tac toe, or board games.

To do this, sort and see how many caps you have of a particular color.

Make sure that you have enough caps of a color to use for the game pieces.

So, for checkers or tic tac toe, you would need enough of two colors.

For board games, you might only need one cap in four colors.

2. Use the lids for a simple, Montessori style moveable alphabet.
To do this, count out your caps.
You need to have enough of two colors to have one color for vowels and one for consonants.
Add small letter stickers to each cap, 1 letter per cap.

3. Use the white or lighter colored lids as water magnifiers..
To do this, have your child place a very tiny item inside the cap.
Then, cover the cap with a glass slide from a microscope.
Put a couple of drops of water onto the slide. Then, have your child look through the water covered slide at the object below...easy, instant magnification!

4. Use the caps to make three dimensional art collages.
To do this, sort out colors by color family.
Then, draw a simple outline for your work and cover each section of your work with the correct color cap.

5. Use the caps for math manipulatives.
To do this, decide on how many caps you need to represent the math concepts you plan to have your child do, maybe you might need 10 caps, or 20, or 100...
The caps can be used for patterning, sorting, counting, placing into sets, attributes work, ordinal numbers, positive and negative numbers, etc.

6. Use the caps for parts of speech...for example, use red caps for verbs and black caps for nouns. Goes along with the Montessori inspired grammar symbols work.

7. Use as an extension to command cards...
To do this, simply write the command inside the cap with a permanent marker, or you could type out the command and then, glue the commands into the lids.
So, maybe one cap might say to touch your head or to hop on one foot, etc.

8. Use for riddles...
To do this, print out riddles and the answers to the riddles.
Place the riddle on one side and then, the answer on the other side.

9. Use for vocabulary words.
Print out the definition and place on the one side and then, place the vocabulary word on the other.

10. Use the caps for story starters.
Print out story starters and glue them to the insides of the caps.
So, maybe a cap would say:
When I went to the grocery store, I...

Well, there are many other uses for caps and lids...these are just some of the possibilities.



Remember, the drawing for my giveaway for the UBP Earth Day Prize Pack is today, so if you leave a comment about this post, please let me know that you want to enter the giveaway. 

I just need your name, your blog address, and your email address.

The drawing is today.

Below are some photos of what is in the prize pack, in case you are curious...

Prize pack includes:
Planet Earth Coloring and Activity Book
Child sized garden gloves
Child sized garden tools
Recycled paper Earth Day notebook for kid's nature journal
Recycled paper sticky notes
Earth Day themed iron on patches
Alphabet stickers and plastic lids to make recycled moveable alphabet
Earth Day Get Your Green On magnetic notepad for your fridge
In the Garden three part cards
Earth Day magnets
Recycling three part cards
Labels & gift tags for Spa Favors: Organic Chocolate Moisturizing Mask, Organic Sugar Scrub
Idea sheet for reusing plastic lids and coffee filters
Mini Grow Your Own Tree Kit...

Please Note: The Mini Grow Your Own Tree Kit is only available in some states, so if you live outside where I can ship the mini tree kit, this will not be included.

But hey, it is a neat prize pack even without the little mini tree kit, right?

I will post the winner's name tonight by 9 pm Eastern time. 

Remember, the giveaway is open to everyone, with only some restrictions regarding the seeds for the little tree.

The winner will have until Sunday at 4 pm to claim their prize.