Wednesday, 12 March 2014

Our Recycling Corner

I've been feeling off my game lately, and it's not just because I'm sick as I write this.  I've been in a state of  busy work glorification in the office and at home, and it's boring the heck out of me.

I miss getting creative.  Not that I'm artistic.  I just need to create something - a strategy at work or a play idea with my daughter.  

Or a recycling corner in my home.  I'm not kidding.  It's these little things that make me feel productive.  


This is an odd little wall in the kitchen next to a screen door that leads to the utility area.  It needed to be a useful spot to put our trash cans, water dispenser and kitchen stools:

Montessori gave me the idea to turn it into another area of the home that encourages order and self-sufficiency:  Everything is easily accessible here for a little one:

The paper recycling bin.  A lot of Ladybug Girl's used artwork ends up here:

The glass and plastic bin:

When the garbage trucks come, these are emptied.  The paper bin gets full easily and so the contents are transferred to an area outside - we also have 3 large segregated trash bins in the garage ready for pick-up.  Sometimes mamang bote-dyayro comes and yaya uses this to fund her phone load.  Win-win.

Some months ago we had a recycling drive at work to fund newborn health kits for Unicef.  This gave me a kick in the pants to get started recycling at home.  All too often going green is all gloom-and-doom, but here was a sweet reminder I loved watching:

If you're a Montessori-convert like I am, you'd be interested to know that they don't teach about the earth being in danger at preschool.  The first important step is to encourage love for nature, not fear.  There's a lot of outside work and play and learning the names of things first.

We've done the same at our home and I've steered clear of the heavy readings on dwindling habitats, pollution, etc.  But there are still a lot of books that do positive teaching to go green.  Her favourites:

But nothing really beats modelling behaviour at home.  A late start, but an important one.  Nothing like an easy creative solution to energize you for more.  Know what I mean?

Time to get back in the game.