Share This

Saturday, February 27, 2010

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.

4 comments:

  1. I used newspaper to cover my table for a recent art activity. I found that if I set my newspaper aside to dry, I can reuse that again for other art projects. I also found a really cool painting kids did on newspaper. The print behind the paintings added another dimension to the art.

    ReplyDelete
  2. When I first started teaching, a colleague told me that preschool teachers are just middle class bag ladies!

    We paved our garden paths with roasted and unroasted coffee beans that the local coffee makers were just going to throw out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Teach, hmm...I rarely use newspaper since our tables are so easy to clean. But I'll create that dimensional project using paper and cut-outs.

    @Tom. oh wow...bag ladies! lol...that's too funny.

    I never drink coffee, cant stand the taste, but I LOVE the smell. How weird is that?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hello, I'm Nicole from ecofreek.com- a search
    engine for free and swap items. Our mission is to provide a
    means for people to find items they need while reducing
    landfill waste.

    We would much appreciate a review of our site or any
    feedback to help improve our service.

    Nicole Boivin
    nicole@ecofreek.com

    ReplyDelete