We wrapped up our recycling section in our interactive notebooks last week. They have been working so hard on these. We are going to share them with their big buddies soon. I want them to be able to use them to teach others about what they have learned.

Vocabulary Development

First, we worked on some vocabulary pages that reinforced what it means to recycle, reuse and reduce.

Recycling Sorts

We spent one morning sorting various recyclable materials and cutting out pictures from grocery ads. My students love to cut things up, so this was a perfect activity for them.

After we did this sort, we kept some of the pictures for their sorting page in their notebook. They could use pictures for each category or for some of them I had real items. For metal, I cut up pieces of foil to glue on. They could cut up plastic bags for the plastic category. This was a great assessment piece. I was able to see who understood what was recyclable.

We also learned about the fourth R, rot. We went to a worm farm and learned why worms are important to our world. I made some pages for their worm studies. If you want to read more about the Earth Day/recycling interactive notebook pack, click below.