Which Bin?
Sorting into the green, yellow and red-lid bins most councils use. Check your own council's bins.
How it plays
Rubbish drifts about; your child drags each thing to its bin: the green lid for food and garden waste, the yellow lid for bottles, cans, paper and boxes, the red lid for things like chip packets and plastic bags. Two bins first, then all three. These are the colours most councils use, but councils differ, so check yours.
What it's for
Sorting into the green, yellow and red-lid bins most councils use. Check your own council's bins. There is no score to lose and no way to fail: a wrong move is met with a gentle nudge, and a level ends when it's done.
Safety: Councils use different bins, so check what goes where on your council's website. Rubbish is for grown-ups to handle; children can help sort clean things. Goulburn Mulwaree Council.
Away from the screen: A bin walk
About two minutes, with things most homes have.
- Walk round your bins together (outside, with a grown-up).
- Look at the lid colours. Which bins does your street use?
- Inside, your child sorts a few clean things into piles: a box, a bottle, a banana peel.
- Check what goes where on your council's website together.
Three questions to ask while they play
- Which bin does a banana peel go in?
- What colour is our recycling bin's lid?
- Why do you think we sort our rubbish?
Play together
Things to say or ask
- A can! Which bin is for cans?
- Our council might be different. Let's check.
Taking turns on one device: One of you names a thing; the other puts it in its bin.
If they find it hard
Start with the green and yellow lids only, and say what each thing is made of as they pick it up: food, paper, plastic.
Every fact, and where it comes from
What Ruby Roo says in Which Bin? was checked against the page it links to.
- Most councils use three lid colours: green for food and garden waste, yellow for clean recycling (paper and cardboard, glass bottles and jars, cans, hard plastics), and red for general waste, including soft plastics like chip packets. Councils differ, so check yours. (Goulburn Mulwaree Council)
What it practises
- Sorting by two things. Putting things into groups by what they look like, then by two things at once: orange and round, small and pointy.
AC9MFSP01 (Mathematics, Foundation); AC9MFM01 (Mathematics, Foundation); EYLF 4.2 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0) - Noticing what's the same. Looking closely to find two that match.
EYLF 4.2 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0)
The codes are from the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 (for children from birth to five) and the Australian Curriculum v9 (Foundation to Year 2). Each links to the official wording. Every skill, and the games for it.
What it costs, and what we collect
Nothing, and nothing. There is no account, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. Which games have been played is remembered on your own device and is never sent anywhere. The full version is here, and it's short.
Where it lives
Which Bin? is part of Our World. It works on a phone, a tablet or a classroom screen, and once it's been opened it keeps working with no signal at all.
Updated