Happy Earth Day, everyone! In celebration of this important day, I’m sneaking in a green giveaway. (Shhhh, don’t tell anyone!) To be entered, simply give a shout out to Earth Day by sharing a favorite environmentally friendly classroom tip or activity. As soon as you do this, your name will be entered in a drawing for one free e-book from The Mailbox. Don’t delay! We must hear from you before the end of the day Saturday (April 23)!
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.
Native American Proverb
Thoughtfully,
Diane
Thanks for responding! Congratulations to Tara for winning an e-book!
Happy Earth Day! I save paper towel tubes and let the kids use them for artwork. We decorate the outside of the tube and then roll up their papers and stick them inside. We also reuse butter containers for storage of small things or the younger kids like to make towers out of them!
We do lots of things to recycle/reuse in our room.
Our librarian collects our papers weekly to take to the recycling center.We use baby food jars for paint projects and to protect/observe insects for a day or two.We have water bottles that we use instead of the
drinkingfountain. We remember to turn out the lights when we leave the room!
I refer to myself as the “queen of recycling” with my kids. I use cardboard tubes, small boxes, egg cartons and the like, at every opportunity for so many art projects. We use cloth napkins and plastic cups for snack. Our school is in Seattle where the city picks up food scraps, so we have bins in the lunch room along side the recycling and garbage cans. We also use cloth rags to wipe our tables.The list goes on and on…
We do lots of recycling in our clasroom. We sortour trash for recycling. We use trash toturn it into art projects.
We use paper towel for drying hands and use pick size so we don’t over uses well.
We also use recycled paper towel and toilet paper tubes, egg cartons, all kinds of containers (couldn’t possibly list them all – not just coffee cans). I do a theme called Reduce Reuse Recycle for the Rainforest. We sing(well dance and listen too) jack johnsons – 3 is a magic number from curious george. This year I received many emails from my parents saying their kids were talking about all this stuff at home like turning off lights, recycling, reducing and reusing.
I use formula cans and Capri Sun boxes to create interactive activities to use with my students in sequencing events in a story, numbers, words in alphabetical order during circle/reading tume.
We recycle all the time and save extra paper to use during stations or other times when a piece of paper is needed.
We use everything from shoe boxes to magazines! We use shoe boxes for storing science activities and also for decorating them for research projects. We have used them along with paper towel and toilet paper tubes to make a train! We also love using old magazines to create poetry!
One of our daily helpers is assigned to lights. Our entire building saves paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls for me. Between summer camps and preschool, we find very creative uses for them. They even compost outdoors when holding up young plants.
Nancy, our state Health Department does not let us use plastic glasses, in a school setting, to be reused. We don’t have a commercial dish washer in our building, so you might want to check your local rules…
We have our printers automatically set to print on both sides of the paper. Once we made this switch, we’ve saved tons of paper! We’ve also switched from paper memos and letters to most of these things coming by email only.
I reuse my students plastic fruit and yogurt as paint and glue cups. They also love to dig for buried treasure (milk caps) in the sand table. Paper towel tubes are great to cover in dot markers and foam stickers. And lastly, twi toilet paper rolls stapled together are great binoculars. I love to reuse many household items and store them in my garage. It is amazing what my students can create with “trash”.
Our school recycles Capri Sun pouches. In my classroom, we use both sides of the paper whenever possible. I use leftover papers to send home newsletters.
Our school has gone from printing handouts for staff development and agendas for staff meetings to emailing all information
We recycle all scraps of paper, leftover yarn pieces, toilet paper tubes and all sorts of things into an art box. We use it as an art station where kids can create whatever their imagination lets them. I am amazed at some of the brillant art work they can come up with!
I have my Kindergarteners save their fruit cups after they have eaten all the fruit. I wash them and put them in a tub with my math manipulative. When we work with the manipulatives I use the cups to hold multiple manipulatives.
We do lots of recycling and reusing in the classroom. We recycle all paper and paper scraps. We reuse anything we can. we reuse the kleenex boxes for storage boxes. We reuse toliet paper and paper towel rolls for lots of differntg art activites. Also we have use scrap paper in our writing center for writing instead of getting a new sheet.
My teaching partner calls me a tree hugger because I always xerox back to back. I get on her about this because she doesn’t!
My students know to check the back side of their papers because there is always something on the back, and on occasion when there isn’t, they remind me that I didn’t use the back side and that is wasting paper! Kindergartners! 🙂
We reuse all sorts of plastic containers such as baby wipe ones to hold scissors glue sticks pencil beads etc, paper towl holders,old magazines & newspapers to cut out pics ,find words, use money 2 show ad prices n sales circulars & reuse the front & back of copy paper as well we also discuss ways 2 help turning off lights and opening blinds with plenty of sunlight 2 see their work & I recycle any extra paper or magazines we don’t use
*We have found a recycling co. that will take our milk cartons from milk break. With over 400 students – this is a huge amount of cartons each day.
*I use film canisters to send home teeth that have fallen out.
*Use individual whiteboards as much as possible so paper usage goes down!
*send parent newsletters via email when possible
We reuse many things in our center. Frozen juice cans are used outside for digging. Some things we use for art projects are magazines, old greeting cards, egg cartons, we never throw paper scrapes away until they are to small to cut anymore. even our bullitain boards are made with recycled objects. Toliet paper and paper towel rolls make great fences.
We made up a cutting box that all paper we couldnt reuse could go into so that at least they could get cutting practice in instead of throwing it away.
I have saved plastic baby food containers and used them in my classroom! They are great for small manipulatives like coins, counters, and beans. Happy Earth Day!
When I need to print anything, I do it on ‘fast draft’ mode to make my ink cartridge last longer. When the ink does run out, I have a student deposit the empty cartridge in the office recycling box.
We also turn the lights out when leaving the room. Each day a different student gets to be “The Light Person” who flips the switches as we walk out of the classroom. 🙂
We use old dryer sheets for erasers on individual dry erase boards.
I keep a recycling bin next to the garbage can in our classroom, and teach the youngsters to put paper scraps, cans, and plastic bottles in the bin. They’re so responsible!
We have a central location to recycle paper, cardboard, and magazines. We make double sided prints when possible and encourage students to walk or ride a bike to school. We turn the lights out when we leave our room and keep the hallway lights off as soon as the students leave in the afternoon. We have reusable water bottles on our desk.