Recycled Rhino Craft for Kids

You can easily create this fun Recycled Rhino Craft with your kids. All you need for this recycling activity is a peanut butter jar, a few dixie cups and paint!

The other day my son asked me to look at a picture he had found on my phone. My heart lurched a little, I usually keep the internet blocked on my phone – but I had turned it on the day before looking for an address. As he walked over to me, my mind was racing wondering what in the world he had found online.

Was it going to be something scary that kept him up at night? Was it going to be completely age inappropriate? Was I going to be able to explain it to him?

As I peeked over his shoulder, I let go a huge sigh of relief.

It was a picture of a rhinoceros with it’s horn painted pink. A little odd, but very far from the worst photo in the world. He inquired why the rhino’s horn was pink and was it real?

I had no idea if it was real. As I sat done with him and clicked through to the website, we found out why the rhino’s horn was pink. According to Scientific American, the founders of the Rhino Rescue Project developed with veterinarians a way to combat rhino poaching in South Africa. Although the picture he found online was not a true representation of how the rhino horns look, they are in fact injected with dye.

By infusing the rhino horn with ectoparasiticides and indelible dye, the horn becomes contaminated, which renders it completely useless for ornamental or medicinal use. As we read through the Rhino Rescue Project site, we were amazed at how dedicated the team was to stopping rhino poaching.

Over the next few days we talked about the rhinos and poaching, and how we wished the rhinos weren’t being poached. We also talked about how just a few people could make such a big difference in the world. We came up with this rhino craft as a way show our thanks for the people out there making a difference in the lives of the South African rhinos.