🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• ♻️ Environmental Thinking — Using natural or recycled materials in crafts begins to develop awareness that materials have a life beyond their original use — an early foundation for environmental stewardship and sustainable thinking.
• 🎨 Creativity & Self-Expression — Making freely chosen creative decisions — which colors, shapes, and materials to use — develops a child's personal artistic voice and the confidence to express original ideas across all areas of life.
• 🌈 Color & Pattern Recognition — Selecting, mixing, and arranging colors and patterns sharpens visual discrimination — the ability to notice subtle differences — which transfers directly to letter and number recognition in early literacy and math.
• 📐 Spatial Reasoning — Three-dimensional crafts — paper folding, cardboard construction, clay sculpting — develop the spatial intelligence children need for geometry, engineering, and understanding how physical objects relate in space.

An empty, well-washed, aired out bleach bottle is best for this preschool recycled plastic bottle piggy bank craft because it’s round. But if you don’t have one, you can use any empty, clean jug-style recycled plastic bottle such as a milk bottle. Use your judgment as to how much help to give. Try to give as little as possible. Instructions are for your preschooler to follow at your direction unless parental help is specified.

Materials You Will Need

Bleach or milk bottle or any jug style plastic bottle
Pink construction paper or felt
Scissors
Non-toxic craft glue
Pink crayon, peeled (not the washable kind)
Black crayon or marker
A small, one- or two-inch, stick or toothpick broken to that size

How to Make it

Before presenting the craft to your preschooler, lay the bottle on its side with the handle side up, determine what will be the top and then make a coin slit with a knife. Make it big enough to make it easy for the preschooler. With a knife or a pick, make a small hole in the bottom for the tail. 

Step 1:
Remove the lid of the jug and set it aside.

Step 2:
Let the preschool child color the entire bottle with the pink crayon to the best of his/her ability.

Step 3:
Help the preschooler trace the lid on the pink construction paper. Cut out the circle. With the black marker or crayon, make two nostrils with the black crayon. Put the lid back on the jug. Glue the circle with the nostrils to the outside of the lid with craft glue.

Step 4:
Draw an eye on the surface on each side of the bottle handle and a mouth below the opening.

Step 5:
Have the child draw two triangles for ears on the pink construction paper and cut them out. Fold the slightly for depth. Glue them to the top of the pig’s head with the craft glue. 

Step 6: 
Your preschool child may need help with this. Attach the end of the chenille stick to the small stick or toothpick. Push the stick through the whole in the bottom of the bottle and slide the stick all the way. Pull the chenille stick back out so that the stick is now across the hole. Curl the chenille stick around a pencil or crayon to make it curl. Fill in the hole with craft glue. 

Step 7:
For feet, cut four strips of construction paper one inch wide and four inches long. Form them into circles and glue the ends. Glue them to the bottle with craft glue. For sturdier feet, you can cover four empty 25-yard thread spools with pink construction paper and glue them to the bottom of the bottle with craft glue.

 Further Suggestions

Who says it has to be a piggy? You and your preschool child can use your imaginations to turn the bottle or jug into any animal you like. Use a different style of plastic bottle and see what you're inspired to make

Who says it has to be a bank? If you feel your preschooler is too young for a bank, skip the coin slot and put beans or large jingle bells in the bottle through the opening. Glue the lid shut after replacing it. You might want to skip making the feet or just use flat paper glued to the bottom. Even if they are glued on well, the feet could come off from shaking too vigorously.