One Person’s Trash…

All of the puppets in Aanika’s Elephants are made out of recyclable materials! Build a work of art and help the planet at the same time by inspiring your class to craft using only found resources. Start with a class discussion about the importance of recycling and what it can do for the environment.


Then, gather recyclable materials in your classroom such as newspaper, popsicle sticks, empty tissue boxes or old binders. They can even venture outside the classroom by examining what could be reused at your school, in your students homes or in your community.


After they’ve gathered their materials, put your students into pairs and have them build a three-dimensional shape, or sculpture, by gluing or taping different materials together. Since Aanika’s Elephants centers on family and home, have the pairs construct something that reminds them of their family or where they come from. This could be an object that reminds them of their home or just a shape that conveys how their family makes them feel!


Start small by trying to build a sculpture with only three or five different materials. Then, have pairs team up to see if they can attach their sculptures to each other’s and build something bigger!


Keep growing the groups and the scale of the sculptures until you can attach every pair’s object to form one giant creation as a class! Now this mega sculpture has a piece of every student’s family and home living inside it.


Give your sculpture a safe home in your classroom and use it as inspiration for storytelling or as a reminder of where your class comes from.

To support this unit, use the Standing for Something Handout.