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Showing posts with label Resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Resources. Show all posts

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.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Using All Your Resources


So I'm right in the middle of lesson planning when I come to a road block. Either I've already done that activity or I just can't think of anything creative. I guess a writer would call it writers block. What do I do? Easy...I use all my resources. There are plenty of resource books, blogs, and websites to get my creative juices flowing. Do I have to use their ideas? Nope but just stepping out of my own world works miracles for me. Inspiration kicks in and before I know it the ideas wont stop coming and the overflow makes me feel like a three year old playing in paint. Where do you go for inspiration? Here's just a few of my favorites...

Resource Books
  • Mailbox
  • Creative Resources
  • The Giant Encyclopedia of themes activities for children 2 to 5
Blogs
Websites
There are so many resources available and so many great ones that I left out. Feel free to share you favorites with us. Hopefully, we can create a dynamic database to use, share, and enjoy. And next time you have a creative block, we'll be there to inspire you through it.

Happy Resource Hunting