Recycling Trucks

The play area is scattered with clean "trash" (empty bottles, paper balls and small boxes), and children are trucks that pick it up, carry it and empty it into the bin of the right color. It builds picking up different-shaped objects, deciding where they go and carrying them while moving.

How to play

1. The teacher introduces the bins: yellow for bottles, blue for paper and green for boxes, showing one of each (2 min).
2. Trucks start up, "vroom vroom," drive around with their steering wheels and brake at a clap (2 min).
3. Each truck picks up one piece of trash, carries it to its bin and drops it inside (4 min).
4. Big trucks: now carry two or three items at once in a box trailer without dropping them (3 min).
5. The teacher dumps the bins on the ground ("The wind came!") and we do it again, faster (3 min).
6. Park the trucks and admire the clean yard (1 min).

Rules

• Each item goes in its own bin.
• Drop it in; don't throw it from far away.
• Trucks brake when another truck is in front.
• If a truck isn't sure where something goes, ask another truck.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: the child is the bin inspector who checks everything is in the right place, or picks up with a long-handled grabber.
• Low vision: give each bin a sound (bell, crinkly paper, plastic lid), and bottles are easy to tell apart by touch.
• Autism: stick a photo card of each item on its bin.

Learning goals

• Pick up and carry objects of different shapes and sizes.
• Sort objects by type.
• Care for the environment by picking up and organizing.

Equipment for a class of 25

• Empty plastic bottles: 20
• Crumpled newspaper balls: 20
• Cardboard boxes: 6
• Colored bins: 3

Teacher tip

Wash the bottles well and remove the caps, which are a choking hazard. Scatter the trash before the kids come out: discovering a "messy" yard really hooks them.

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