The ABCs of Recycling

Plastic caps are harder to recycle than the bottles they top, but with this easy alphabet magnet craft, you'll be putting them to even better use: learning letters! Materials Bottle caps Magazines Scissors Nontoxic glue stick Self-adhesive magnetic tape (available at craft stores) Instructions Collect 30 or so plastic bottle caps. You'll want enough for every letter of the alphabet, plus more for E's, A's, S's, T's--and any other letters that appear twice in your child's name. Not enough caps at your house? Ask the neighbors! Search through magazines and cut out bold, colorful letters to fit inside each cap. Also look for pages without much writing, and cut them into small white squares, slightly larger than the bottle caps. Trim as close as possible to each letter, and then glue them onto the white square backgrounds. Place a bottle cap on top of a white square and trace around it so you know what size circle to cut. Use this as a template, and cut the rest of the squares into circles. Glue each letter to the inside of a cap. Cut a small piece of self-adhesive magnetic tape. Stick on the back of a cap so that the magnetic side is facing out. Repeat with remaining caps. Stick your magnets on the fridge and start spelling! Craft by Ellen Goldberg Photograph by Andrew McCaul Thanks to Kiwi Magazine!