I’m giving a shout-out to teachers for being green! After all, who’s been recycling, reusing, and reducing for years? Teachers have! Tomorrow’s Earth Day, so I say let’s begin our celebration today. Let’s see how many suggestions we can list for reusing. Twenty-five? Fifty? Maybe even 100! Here are a couple ideas to get us started.
- Turn a four-pocket cardboard beverage holder into a picnic caddy for plastic knives, forks, spoons, and straws! Or use the holder as a paint caddy for four plastic cups and four colors of paint!
- Reuse water from pet bowls, water glasses, and so on to water plants.
Now it’s your turn! And, by the way, if you’re in need of a last-minute Earth Day activity, we’ve got you covered. Check out “Get Free Stuff!” at TheMailbox.com—register now and get instant access to timely resources for Earth Day, spring, and much more!
Think green!
Diane
I’ve seen many teachers reuse margarine containers to hold water for watercolor paints. I think that’s a great idea!
Diane, One of my most favorite reusing ideas is cutting cereal boxes to make magazine caddies. I love to cover the boxes with pretty paper and store my Teacher’s Helper and Mailbox magazines in them. Happy Earth Day!!
I reuse all kinds of things! I reuse trays from microwave meals for paint trays, yogurt cups to hold small parts of art projects, baby food jars for snow globes, the tops from plastic bottles for counters/manipulatives for the students, and even film canisters to use as handles on many things.
Of course, I recycle everything I can as well. Our recycle center has a give and take section and I love to check it out for items that I can bring into my classroom for the students. It’s an economical way to get “new supplies.”
One of my favorite recycle items is to use the plastic rectangular baby food containers as glue containers. There is a limited amount that can spill and I teach my preschoolers to use a small paint brush to brush on the glue and not waste it. Also these plastic containers are easy to clean and refill!
We reuse whatever we can in our classroom. I’ve started collecting old yogurt and cottage cheese containers from parents to store extra math manipulatives in. We even reuse tissue boxes to make into games and storage for game cards.
I am recycling glue bottles and glue sticks in my classroom for Elmer’s Glue. We also have a Tools for Teachers Store that gives recyclables and donations to title 1 schools in our district. I love this place. I get all kinds of paper and recyclables to use in my classroom. I have converted all of my files from folders into binders that I got from there. I have used little cardboard mountains for blowing up volcanoes in the classroom. I collected old film canisters and use them for sniffing activities and alkaseltzer rockets. I recycle so much stuff in my classroom. The other teachers call me a pack rat. However, whenever, they need something for an activity, they come to me first!
There are so many things you can do with cereal boxes. Here’s a few ways:
1. Book Covers: Cut a box into 2 or 4 rectangles (depending on size of paper used to write a story) cover with wrapping paper or cloth, and bind bind/attach to a student’s story.
2. Picture Frames: Cut into a square or rectangle shape, paint(solid dark color) and attach it to a student’s picture (as background.
3. Dust Pan: Cut part into a 3 dimensional L shape.
Picking-up little [pieces of paper)can be more of a treat . . . instead of using whatever you can get your hands on to collect the finer stuff in the classroom.
4. Crayon Boxes: Cut the box to look like a tub. If you want, you can wrap it with decorative wall or shelf paper. Place the broken crayons into this new beautiful crayon container. Mark my words, your students will tend to use up these crayons fast . . . I suspect the kids appreciate fancy things.
I reuse fruit cup containers to hold individual portions of paint. I use gallon milk jugs to make candy carriers for Halloween and Easter baskets for the egg hunts we hold. We even have a drawer for scrap paper that we use for just about everything.
I did the Elmer’s glue recycling as a student driven project last year with my kindergarteners. The students created the jobs they would each have: Speakers, Collectors & Counters. They all contributed to creating the box/bucket for collecting by suggesting and voting on what color the box should be and the images that should be displayed. They decided how we would let the whole school know what we were doing. They came up with posters, putting it on the announcements and having students go to each room to speak. This is where I could incorporate language arts. Since it was closer to the end of the year they could write a lot of high frequency words and could use them on their posters. To incorporate math they also graphed the number of bottles/sticks we had. And of course with it being recycling science was automatically there. I was so impressed by how little minds could come up with such great ideas!
I’ve actually reused the students’ plastic milk cartons from breakfast and lunch and making them into either vases for the kids to take home or to hold pencils. And of course, shoe boxes as well! I’ve started collecting those. Can be used for anything really! Holding classroom items especially!
We started a recycling program at our school this year. We have bins in the classroom for students to put extra papers or paper scraps and then we have a recycling truck that comes and picks them up. Our students are so excited about this program and remind each other to recycle.
We reuse paper scraps for arts and crafts as well as for writing notes or making list
Science fair boards or trifold boards can be reused by flipping them over and using the back. It might have a little trouble standing up again but the boards are really expensive and use a lot of cardboard. This way you can get more use out of it!
hey,
i like the getting green stuff. i also get green with my class.
I ALSO LOVE RECYCLING AND REUSE
FOR MOTHER’S DAY WE WILL BE USING THE SMOOTHY YOGURT BOTTLES AS VASES WITH TINY FLOWERS ON TOP AND DECORATE THE VASE LIKE A WOMAN
REGULAR YOGURT CONTAINERS ARE ALSO GREAT FOR PLANTERS
64OZ JUICE OR MILK CARTONS MAKE GREAT BIRD HOUSES AND SHIPS
STRAWBERRY CONTAINTERS(PLASTICS ONES)-TREASURE CHEST FOR PIRATES OR JEWELRY BOXES OR EVEN PENCIL BOXES FOR SCHOOL
I am a preschool teacher for a non-profit organization and is always looking for ways to save on cost and supplies.
This past Easter/Passover Holiday, we made a candle holder using a baby food jar and color tissue paper. We asked the infant room to save the baby jars and for families to send in the tissue paper that comes from presents. In this project, we used clear glue to glue the tissue paper on the outside of the jars and placed a tea light inside the jar. The children also enjoyed being part of the process of collecting, cleaning, and storing the recycle material to be used for our projects.
This Mother’s Day, we are reusing old cards. I had save cards from all occasions and cut out the pictures. We will be using them to make a Mother’s Day cards. For older children, they can cut out their own pictures and words. The can form the words or phrases to make a new card.
We also reuse playdough containers. I use them to hold paint, sequence, glitter, glue, etc.
We have a “junk art” box in our room. All scraps of paper, fabric, leftover diecuts, pieces of ribbon, confetti, stickers even the empty scotch tape rings…anything that can be turned into art. The kids can use the box to create art on recycled paper (left paper of any kind). They really get quite creative. Our box has been as big as one of the big plastic tote bins.