Recycle Your Way to a Kindergarten Graduation Cap

Kindergartners are adorable, aren't they? They've gained confidence throughout the school year. They dive right into projects, can recall the units they've studied with their teachers and like the challenge of going center to center to do their school work each day.

They are the perfect age to teach the value of recycling and reduction of materials to reduce garbage. Teach a child and they are much more likely to be the true recycling population that helps this earth.

A great way to do a hands-on lesson in recycling as this school year comes to an end is to engage them in a handmade kindergarten graduation cap project.

This is a good project for teachers, parent volunteers, high school art class, and home-schoolers to involve themselves in. Our local primary school has an end of the year awards certificate presentation assembly for the students. This takes place during a school day a few days before school closes for the summer. No matter how the end of the year is commemorated by your child's primary, private or home school this will be a project that the kindergartner can make with adult help and will be a cute little wall hanging to remind the little one that First Grade is the next exciting step in life.

Materials needed: This is a reduce and recycle project. Materials can be gathered in common supplies and refuse in the home, school or work place.
Basic needs are cardboard, cereal boxes, paper, string, magazine or catalog pictures, advertisement fliers etc., glue, measuring tape and scissors.

The basic construction of a graduation cap consists of a square and rectangle. The head band rectangle will measure 6 inches wide by the child's head measurement plus 2 inches . If the child's head measures 25 inches around at the top of the ears the length will be 27 inches and 6 inches wide. A 12 inch by 12 inch square is needed for the 'mortarboard' . It can be cut from cereal boxes, corrugated boxes etc. To see complete directions for attaching the headband to the mortarboard see my article, www.http://associatedcontent/article/754015/preschool_graduation_caps_made_from.html