Teach Me Mommy

Playful and easy activities with the aim to teach

  • Kids Activities
    • Teach my Baby
    • Teach my Toddler
    • Teach my Preschooler
    • Teach me Fine Motor Skills
    • Teach me Literacy/Numeracy
    • Teach me Rhymes
    • Teach me Sensory
    • Teach me Science
  • Holidays
    • Valentine’s Day
    • Easter
    • Christmas
    • Birthdays
  • Gifts
  • DIY
    • Busy Bags
    • Keepsakes
    • Toys
  • Recipes
    • Food Recipes
      • South African Recipes
    • Play Recipes
  • SHOP

STEAM & Recycle Build a Town

September 25, 2019 by Bernardé Leave a Comment

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Build a mini town and develop all kinds of skills, perfect as a STEAM lesson PLUS you recycle too!

Build a Town pin

When we moved from the coast, we missed the ocean terribly. To embrace our new town, we did quite a bit of exploring and the riverfront was (and still is) our favorite place.

What you will need:

Lots of paint and recyclables! This project comes with a warning however, it took a few weeks to complete, needed plenty of space and got messy!

Build a Town1

What to do:

We started with a large cardboard sheet, you can collect large boxes from furniture stores. Next, we used chalk to sketch a basic idea of where we wanted to place the river, houses and streets.

Now for the messy part – paper maché. I prefer an old phone directory to a newspaper, it won”t blacken your fingers as much as a newspaper and it’s easier to tear into rectangles. Rectangles work well to coat and object and build layers. To “sculpt” objects, egg cartons are amazing. Make sure you soak the paper to be used in water for a day or two before use. To bind the paper, I use about one-third wood glue (Ponal or Alcolin) to two-thirds water. If you are working with smaller children, the trusted flour/water mix is probably a better option.

To create dimension in our landscape we layered the paper maché in the higher areas and left the lower areas for the river, streets and houses. I always try to use as many recyclable materials as possible.

Build a Town2

We made the houses out of small boxes from the grocery cupboard, painted them in bright colors and added details with marker pens. Just a note on paint – Dala Tempera paints remain my favorite as it’s non-toxic and relatively inexpensive.

The bridge was constructed from ice-lolly sticks and scraps of wood, (the pieces you get when you buy ready-made canvases that you are supposed to use in the corners.) The lampposts were from wooden skewers topped with a crystal bead. I would’ve liked to add real working lights but we did the project before those handy tiny LED lights were readily available.

Build a Town3

The “sandbox” was made out of a matchbox, the flower boxes from polystyrene blocks and fake flowers. The trees were created from dry branches and crinkled paper. The wooden furniture was from an old playset we revamped with a lick of paint. We used dried beans for the paths and lastly the folded cars were from worksheets from education.com

Build a Town fb

Have fun building your own mini-town from recyclables using our project as inspiration! The perfect STEAM and recycling project for kids of all ages!

Related Posts

  • Recycle Crafts: Spring Flowers

    Make a Spring flowers by reusing recyclables and gift it…

  • The Wheels of the Bus Recycle Craft

     It's Rhyme Time! Last week we made finger puppets for…

  • Build bugs
    Build a Bug Busy Box

    Here is another great idea for a felt busy box,…

Feel free to share!

35 shares
  • Share
  • Tweet

Filed Under: default, Kids Activities & Crafts, Projects Tagged With: recycle, steam

About Bernardé

Homeschool mom of two geeky, computer crazy boys. We didn't choose to homeschool, homeschooling chose us. It often is one crazy journey but I have no regrets. I am passionate about Art and being creative is a key ingredient in our homeschool recipe book.

« DIY Straw Maze
Paper versus Plastic Experiment »

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Welcome!

Hi! I'm Nadia! A teacher and a mommy of two, who loves to be creative and share easy activities you can do at home with your kids too! Read More…

Visit our TpT Store

TpT store logo

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Categories

More

  • About us/Contact
    • Contact
  • Disclosure & Privacy Policy
  • Freebies
  • SHOP
  • Sign-up to our Newsletter
  • Thanks

Freebies Sign-Up

Copyright © 2025 · Delightful theme by Restored 316

Copyright © 2025 · Delightful Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in