Plastic Lid Activities

Plastic lids.   Every milk carton, juice bottle, and food canister has them.  You could just toss them, but why not have some fun with them first?

This month Project Recycle and Create is focusing on plastic lid activities, including plastic lid crafts!

We have used our plastic lids to make lower-case letter manipulatives, like those we used in our Vehicle Letter Transport activity.   They’ve also been tossed into water to see if they float or sink and have even given a Lego person a ride or two.

This time around I thought we’d try crafting with them.

I thought they made a lovely flower center for this simple upcycled card — perfect for a teacher at the end of the school year or maybe even Mom on Mother’s Day!

To make the card, I cut strips from a couple colorful magazine pages.  Then I made a loop with each strip, gluing them into place in a circle.  (I chose to make a second layer with the magazine strips, but one layer with five “petals” was also cute!)

Then I glued my plastic bottle cap to the center and added the other details with markers.

I showed the card to the preschooler, thinking it would inspire him to glue the plastic lids to a drawing.  (I figured they’d become car wheels…)

Of course kids always have their own ideas!

The preschooler didn’t want to glue his plastic lids at all.  Instead he decided to use them to trace circles.

He was quite content to trace a multitude of circles of various sizes.

Looking for other ideas for those plastic lids and bottle caps?

Enjoy other great ideas on how to use plastic lids and bottle caps from these Project Recycle and Create co-hosts: