The three R's? Recycle, Renew, Reuse

In these hard economic times most people are busy budgeting and cutting back. There's more talk of recycling and reusing what you already have. For most teachers this is not a new concept. It is a must. Here are some of the ways I recently use and reuse items in my classroom.

Trees aren't just for Christmas anymore. This year my class had such a fun time putting up our Christmas tree I pulled it out and we decorated it for Valentines.




Our tree was intended to have hearts with the names of all the people we love on them. Unfortunately, we never go around to it. It's hard to see in the picture but the kids and I stuck glittery hearts on the ends of the branches. Then they took a red streamer and wrapped it around the tree. Later, we added red tinsel that was for Valentines decoration and these Christmas bulbs I just happened to have from a Wal-Mart clearance shelf. I updated these by adding a red sticker to each bulb.




After our Valentines theme and Celebration was over I took our streamers down and we used them for dancing then later to fly as kites since it was windy outside.



So what neat ideas have you come up lately to use the three R's? Challenge yourself this month to update and reuse items from a previous lesson.