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Click here to read Upcycled Clock: A Color Matching Activity on Hands On As We Grow
Love turning recyclables into playtime? Francis shows us a cute upcycled clock that uses old bottle caps and help your preschooler learn to read time!
Learning the position of the numbers on the clock face is a great way to know more about clocks and telling time.
We made this easy upcycled clock with leftover bottle caps. This fine motor activity is fun to make, fun to play with, and looks pretty too.
My favorite part? The kids can also control with how the clock hands move!
What you will need:
- Scissors
- Card stock (or upcycled cardboard — but an adult will need to do the cutting)
- 12 bottle caps (any size and color)
- 2 Straws
- 1 Push pin or sewing pin
- 12 different colors of paint
(these non-toxic acrylic paints have SO many colors – affiliate link) - Marker
Making the Upcycled Clock:
To make the clock shape, we traced around a large bowl onto card stock. Melissa put her scissors skills to practice by cutting out the circle. She did a great job!
Next, Melissa made 12 circles on the card stock by tracing around the bottle caps we were going to use as the numbers. I helped to show her where each circle would be.
We chose 12 different colors of paint and she painted the 12 bottle caps, one of each color.
While waiting for the caps to dry, she also painted the circles on the card stock with the same color paints… because painting is just fun!
She cut the straws for the clock hands – once short and one long. I used the push pin to hold both straws together in the middle of the clock. On the back side of the clock, I bent the pin flat, so it would stay in place and hold the clock hands as they moved. (If you’re concerned with the sharp pin on the back, just cover it with a piece of duct tape.)
Once the caps had dried, we used a marker to write numbers from 1 to 12 on each one. Each numbered cap matched the position of the colors on our paper clock.
Our clock was ready!
Playing with the Upcycled Clock:
Melissa enjoyed matching the numbered bottle caps on the clock. She used the colors and also the order of the numbers to place them in the right spaces.
The straws were a big hit too! She liked turning them and pointing at different numbers.
I love that this activity challenges her color matching skills, since the 12 colors force her to learn beyond the primary and secondary colors.
She can also be hands-on with adjusting the time to match the clocks in our home, which is so much more helpful for learning time than just looking at a clock!
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