Week 3: Recycling

Last week was lots of fun, as we explored the theme of recycling.  We have discovered that competions and team games work really well in lessons, and so we began with a recycling race.  2 volunteers from each team needed to sort through a bag of rubbish and allocate it into different recycling piles.  It was designed to help the children think about the amount of things that we can recycle, where possible.

The main activity was meant to be making recycling paper, but after a disasterous trial run (and a nearly blocked sink), I decided that it wasn't the best activity to do in a single lesson.  I then had a go at  making recycled paper beads, which actually worked very well, but were quite messy and would take too long. Therefore, after getting slightly desperate, I opted for recycled bracelets.  We folded 2 strips of old paper to make bracelets, rings and necklaces.  I am pleased to report that Christianity magazine made particularly good bracelets, being made of thicker paper!

The original plan for the lesson was to make the recycled paper, and plan letters to write to the local council about recylcling on the paper.  However, when I spoke to the children, they thought that there were good facilities for recycling in Cusco.  When I have spoken to other people, including others from Cusco, they have said that recycling is very difficult here.  However, it didn't seem appropriate to ask the children to write letters when they didn't think that there was a problem.  Instead, we created a couple of spur of the moment Christmas decorations for those that finished early, which turned out to be very popular. In fact, a girl in a normally well behaved class was crying as her friend hit with her a piece of cardboard, as it was in short supply to make the 3-d Christmas trees!  She soon recovered and was happier when she was re-united with the cardboard.  It was another great lesson and the children participsted in all of the activities. Next (and final) week - reusing...