Sort Your Recycling Worksheets

Help your kids learn how to sort recyclables with these sort your recycling worksheets. While it’s wonderful that Earth day comes once a year, to make a difference, we really need to think about taking care of the earth year-round. Here are some ideas (and resources) for doing just that!

If you love these worksheets, don’t forget to check more activities like this in my Earth Day Activities for Kids blog post.

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What is recycling?

You may remember learning about recycling as a kid with the fancy “3-R” method: reduce, reuse, and recycle. This is certainly a start to recycling, but there is much more involved in this process. For starters, the overall goal of recycling is to convert waste materials into new materials and objects. Without this process, landfills would constantly fill up and overtake the earth.

There is also a scientific aspect to recycling. Before an item can be used to create something else, the original state has to be considered. If it can be used from its original state, then it’s a go to be used.

Benefits of Teaching Recycling

It doesn’t take much thought to consider the benefits of recycling. Teaching kids the benefits can help them see the importance of why it should be done. Here are a few to share with your kids:

It benefits the environment.
Recycling creates jobs.
Recycling helps raise awareness about taking care of the environment.
Recycling reduces the energy used to manufacture goods.

How to Teach Recycling to Kids

Use worksheet activities

We want to raise awareness with our kids but we also want to turn their awareness into habits that will carry on. Get your kids involved with recycling with science worksheets (grab them below) for a start. My “Sort the Recycling Worksheets” will help teach your kids about the different things that can be recycled and how to sort them.

Make it a hands-on project

To make recycling a hands-on project, have your kids take a look around the house and gather items they think should be recycled. Discuss what items can be recycled and which ones need to be trashed. Be sure to make separate piles to help with sorting.

If you don’t have much that can be found around the home, consider cutting out the images I’ve provided on the first page of the worksheet resource and sort them into the appropriate boxes. You or your kids can draw in your own items as well. This is why I left a huge space for trash so your kids can come up with their own ideas if they wanted to add to it.

Educational videos about recycling

Thanks to our technologically advanced world, you can find a number of educational videos about recycling. Here are a few to get you started:

Recommended Recycling Books for Kids

Teach your kids the importance of recycling with any of these recycling books. Start a junk bin that you can use to make crafts from to reuse the garbage that would otherwise be thrown out.

Save the Ocean (Save the Earth Book 1)What Does It Mean to Be Green?: A Picture Book about Making Eco Friendly Choices and Saving the Planet! (Earth Day Books, Recycling Books for Kids)Why Should I Recycle?: Helping Kids Take Care of Planet Earth (Social Emotional Learning, Growth Mindset, classroom and homeschool supplies) (Why Should I? Books)Kids vs. Plastic: Ditch the straw and find the pollution solution to bottles, bags, and other single-use plastics The Whale Who Ate Plastic: Teaching Young Children About the Problem of Ocean Plastic Pollution and the Importance of Recycling (Children’s Environment Books, Recycling & Green Living Books)One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia (Millbrook Picture Books)

Download the Recycling Sorting Worksheets below:

Add more activities to your environmental science lessons or learn more about Earth Day on April 22nd.

>> You’ll love these Earth Day Worksheets for Kids.

If you are looking for fun printables to teach your kids about the earth’s crust, mantle, and core, I have these awesome layers of the earth worksheets for you.