Teaching Your Preschooler To Recycle

By Marie-Helen Goyetche

We know and understand the meaning behind these slogans, but does your preschooler understand the concept behind a message like Save the Earth?

When they're younger than age 7, children struggle in a world of fact and fiction. What's real and what's imaginative are constant questions they face. The 3-year-old will be less concerned compared to the 4- and 5-year-olds who are trying to make sense of their world more and more every day. To tell your child, "Let's save the Earth" is a heavy concept, and places a lot of responsibility on your preschooler's shoulders.

Yes, we must save the world. We must protect the land and the animals, but we must also present these concepts in a way that preschoolers can understand. How can we do this? Rather than presenting the environment and its issues in one chunk, it's a good idea to present them in little tidbits.

"At our daycare, we once had 'The Environment' theme, which lasted two weeks within the school year," explains Sofia Z., an early childhood educator for more than 10 years. "We changed that and now we talk about the environment in little doses in our daily routines."

We can't decide, "OK, today I'm going to save the world." It's a continuous effort. It's one that must be talked about over and over again and dealt with on a daily basis.

"We first showed them pictures of landfills and explained that garbage was just piled over and over," Sofia says. "We told them if we didn't stop sending lots of garbage, the landfill would overflow. We asked them to help find ways to reduce or reuse or recycle items for us to be careful of what we put in the garbage."

Jennifer, Sofia's coworker, says: "We introduce questions to the children to make them think of what happens to things once we are finished with different items. We asked them, what can you do with this? Can you reuse it? Can you recycle it? Or can you reduce it? They didn't always get the right answers but eventually we got some