Projects for Recycling Milk Cartons

1. Home made Building Blocks: Open up the peaked tops of two clean, used milk or juice cartons. Fit one over the other so that the bottom shows at each end. You now have a surprisingly durable building block. Cover it with contact paper if you like. You can add more blocks to your collection as you drink more milk!

2. Bowling Pins: Stand up a few cartons to knock over with a ball. If you want them to look fancy, cover them with contact paper and make numbers and dots on them with a marker.

3. Doll House: Cover, then cut out windows and doors with an exacto knife (adults-only job!). Decorate your house with markers. Make a whole village using different sized milk and cream cartons!

4. Garden Planter: Carefully poke holes in the bottom of a carton you have cut down to a reasonable height. Fill with soil and plant some seeds according to the directions on your seed packet. Watch the seeds sprout and grow. Later you can transplant the seedlings in your garden or if the plants stay small enough, you can keep them on a sunny windowsill.

Open up the peaked tops of two clean, used milk or juice cartons. Fit one over the other so that the bottom shows at each end. You now have a surprisingly durable building block. Cover it with contact paper if you like. You can add more blocks to your collection as you drink more milk!

You need two cartons. Use the bottom edge of one carton as a measure. Place sideways and trace a line on the second carton so that your measured line is as high up on the carton as the carton is wide. Cut with a knife along the trace line (again, adults only!). Measure and cut the same way with the other carton. You now have two shorter cartons. Fit the open end of one into the open end of the other. You now have a cube.

Cover each surface with a different color construction paper. (Cut six squares of construction paper the same size as the carton surface. Use a swab of glue stick to hold each square in place and then tape along the edges to keep the construction paper from lifting off. Electric tape or duct tape works the best. Optional: If you want your cube to have longevity, you can cover the whole thing with clear contact paper.)

Use your finished cube as a giant die. Take turns rolling it, naming the color, and finding something in the room that matches it. Or, if you're ambitious, make cards from the same colors of construction paper with actions to perform. The child rolls the die, chooses a card of the same color, and does that activity (sing a song, say a nursery rhyme, hop on one foot, etc.) You can also use the cube at clean-up time. Roll the die and pick up toys of that color.