We decided to celebrate Earth Day this year by making coffee filter stained glass earths. We actually cheated and used some round paper towels we had been sent as we didn’t have any coffee filters, but you get the same result.
How to make coffee filter stained glass earth
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Materials
- Coffee Filter Papers or paper towels we used Ora paper towels
- Felt tip pens – we use Crayola Supertips Washable
- Water in a spray bottle
- Earth template – earth free printable
- Micron pens (these don’t smudge, feather or bleed)
Instructions:
We used our template to draw the continents on to our paper towels with Pigma Micron pens (these are permanent archival ink pens and do not smudge, feather or bleed even when water is applied).
Then we coloured in the sea blue and the land green like our globe.
Once we had coloured them in (it doesn’t have to be neat) we then sprayed the earths with water. The more water you spray the more the colours bleed in to each other.
Then we allowed our earths to dry overnight. We sprayed them and left them in the bath, which cleaned really easily.
Learning points
As we were making these we discussed the different continents, looking at each of them on the globe that we owned.
We talked about how the pen colour bleeds when water is applied due to capillary action due to the paper towel having loose fibers that have spaces between them that act as capillary tubes
Earth hour, day and month
We talked about the importance of Earth hour and turning off our lights and being as green as possible and how we as a family can work towards reducing our ecological footprint. We discussed that in the UK alone, we’re consuming three times our fair share of the planet’s natural resources. So that it was really important that that we reduce our energy consumption as a family and how and why we reuse, reduce and recycle.
We came up with a list of what we do at home that makes a difference:
- Switching off the television fully rather than leaving it on standby
- Turning the lights off when we are not in a room
- Walking or scooting to school and leaving the car at home
- Eating foods grown in season and growing our own vegetables
We discussed what climate change is and how it might affect us where we live, we discussed the ozone layer and the melting of polar ice caps. A lot of what we talked about was driven by the boys themselves.
If you like this then check out our other Earth Day and Recycled Crafts
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