It’s Garbage Day!

Monday is Garbage Day at our house. My little guy loves standing at the window watching the truck come and go. He is always sad when it is gone. Today I cheered him up by promising to help him make his own garbage truck. Here's what we came up with.

Materials Needed: 2 large sheets of drawing paper, colored cardstock, markers, crayons, pipe cleaners, scissors, glue, tape, and a pencil.

Directions:
1. Draw a garbage truck on a large piece of paper with a pencil (or print one off here )

2. Have your child color the truck with markers.

3. Use a black marker to outline the truck and then cut it out.

4. Draw three circles on colored paper to go in the center of the wheels. Cut them out.

I did this next step while my little guy was napping.
5. Cut out several shapes from colored cardstock to make buildings and houses. Use a new large piece of drawing paper. Draw a road with a marker on the bottom of the paper.

6. Have your child color the road with crayons.

7. Next have your child cover the paper with glue and help him lay out the buildings above the road.

I underestimated my little guy's ability to use a glue stick... so definitely help your child do it themselves, don't do it for them.

8. Have your child cover the back of the garbage truck with glue. Then help him turn it over and stick it on the road.

9. Next, have your child put glue on the wheels.

10. Then, help them stick the cardstock circles in the middle of the wheels. I was surprised, my little guy was able to do this part without any help.

11. The last part was just for fun and to add a little texture to the picture. Have your child help you bend pipe cleaners to go around and wheels and the window.

We tried gluing the pipe cleaners... but in the end had to tape them because they weren't staying put (probably because we didn't use enough glue).

12. For the last step, I drew two trash cans (because a garbage truck needs trash cans) and my little guy colored them in. We cut them out and then glued them on to our picture.

It's garbage day reincarnated!

My little guy loved this project. Now when we walks by our kitchen table he always says hi, goodbye or goodnight to his garbage truck. This wasn't a quick project. We worked on it for awhile in the morning and a little bit in the afternoon, but time flew by because he was having so much fun.

Language Development:

This is a non-stop language building activity. We had conversations about the parts of the garbage truck, where the garbage trucks pick up garbage, who drives the garbage truck, the shapes we saw, lines on the trash cans, colors on the truck, trash cans, and buildings.