Tuesday, April 26, 2011

April Village Playday

In honor of Earth Day on April 22nd, we made RECYCLED PAPER with the Thames & Cosmos Recycled Paper Press Experiment Kit for our Village Playday activity.


This science kit is intended for ages 8+,
but with help from an adult it was a fun activity for children as young as 3.


I saved all of the gift wrap and tissue paper scraps left over from the presents that had been wrapped the day before, along with the sports section of the news paper that someone left behind on The Salon at Kids Club waiting bench, and cleared out the hole punches of their tiny paper dots.


I tore and cut the paper into small pieces and mixed them up in a bucket with lots of water and let the whole slurry soak over night. This gave the paper a chance to break down and the fibers to separate. The next morning it was all mushy and ready to be made into a new sheet of recycled paper.The kids had a lot of fun touching the mushy paper pulp in the water.


I helped dip the provided trays into the paper pulp and water mixture and shake the tray so that the pulp was in a relatively even layer. I placed the layer of mesh over top and let the kids use the yellow tool to press out as much water as they could. This step was very easy for the toddlers to do without help from an adult. Since it was the second to last step, it gave the children a sense of accomplishment, being able to see that they pressed the paper into it's final product.


Here it is!
A beautiful piece of recycled paper!
If I do say so myself, we made the most beautiful recycled paper I have ever seen because we started with such fun and colorful gift wrap paper. Which we just happen to have lots of left over scraps in our recycling bin everyday.

What activity do we have planned for our May Village Playday?
Something SUPER special!!!

A LIVE IN-STORE PERFORMANCE WITH CASPAR BABYPANTS!!!
Tuesday May 17th
performance will start at 10:00 a.m. sharp

Listen to music, watch videos, and read more about caspar babypants on the web here:

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