 |
| Recycle DAZE |
Have you Tried? saving the new mayonaise jars--the kind that are plastic and have the blue flip-top lids--to keep manipulatives on the shelf. collect recycle items for storage or manipulative ideas, or collect beautiful junk for creative art experiences collect paper towel rolls and cut them into strips for eseal paintings and other papers that i can roll up - just slip the piece of paper towel roll over the paper, collect meat trays, the styrofoam ones, cleaned well of course - they are great for art projects collect decorative tissue boxes to use for valentines party mailboxes using rain gutters for displaying books creating creatures using paper rolls, scrap items, pipe cleaners and other recycled materials. The children made all different kinds of creatures and even made stories to go with their creatures! c.2005 - 2008 |
| What do you with. . . Have you ever have so many toilet paper rolls collect in your classroom or a recycle bag full of plastic water bottles? Here is a collection of creative ideas to use these everyday items in a new way! Empty Boxes - Cut off the tops and use for the storage of small things. - Cut into any size index cards. Use for flash cards, recipe cards, etc. - Use to store recipe cards. - Use pieces for bookmarks. Write down any ideas that pop into your head while reading. - Use for storing plastic bags. Place in different rooms of the house for easy access - Tape the lids of a shoe box, paint them bright colors, and give them to the children's for building blocks. - Set up a pretend grocery store with empty food boxes. Coffee Filters Color Transfer Use washable markers to color the coffee filters. Then mix a small amount of glue and water together. Place the coffee filter on either canvas, paper or cotton material and then paint the water and glue solution over the coffee filter. The color transfers from the coffee filter to whatever the coffee filter is on. The glue then makes the color permanent. Butterflies Give each student a coffee filter and let them decorate it with different colored markers. Take a spray bottle with water, and lightly spray the coffee filters until the colors start to run into each other. Let them dry. When dry, scrunch the middles together and tie with a piece of yarn. Take a pipe cleaner, wrap it around the middle so the two ends are sticking up for antenea. ZipLock Bags Goo Bags Sandwich-sized ziploc bags Hair gel Duct tape Fill bag with gel. Make sure most of the air out of the bag and zip closed. Tape the to shut with duct tape. Doubling the bag is a good idea. Variations: add a tablespoon of tempera paint. It will mix as the child squeezes it. Create other "goo" bags with shaving cream or cooked cornstarch and water mixture. Spray bottles Fill bottles with water. Children are free to spray areas of the playground. Variations: add food colouring and tape paper to fence and spray pictures. In winter use coloured water and spray snow. Soda Bottles Make a homemade tornado, place two bottles together, top to top - filling one with water. Tape the tops together and swirl around to make a tornado effect. You can also make a funnel from the tops of soda bottles. Add sand or rice and use for a homemade bowling game for the kids; just be sure to glue the caps on. Milk Jugs Bird Feeders Rinse out an empty plastic gallon milk jug with lid. Cut a window in the front of the jug, and make two small poke holes for the perches. Insert pencils for perches and fill the bottom of the jug with bird seed. CD DISCs paint them and then wrote the children's names/photographs on them. Put magnets on the back and put them on the outside of lockers Coffee Cans Luminaries Materials: Clean tin can with labels removed and only one end opened, dark coloured crayons, water, large nail, hammer, metallic copper acrylic paint, tea candles What to do: Decide on a simple outline to use. Using the crayon, draw the design in the middle of each side of the can. Fill the can with water and set it upright in the freezer. Wait for the water to freeze solid. Take the can outside and stand on a concrete stoop or sidewalk. Lay the can in between your feet to hold it in place. Following your crayon pattern on your can, carefully tap holes into the lines of the design by placing the point of the nail along the line and punching it through with the hammer. Continue hammering along the outline and make holes about V4 inch apart. When you are done, dump the ice out. Dry the can and then let it air dry. Paint only the outside of the can (spray paint works well) Drop in a tea candle and admire the glow Cover a coffee can with white contact paper and fill with magnetic letters. It becomes portable magnetic boards. Put Sand in the bottom can for weight and hot glue 5 cans one on top of the others. Duct tape the seams for reinforcement. Spray paint brown. Put greenery in the top that drapes down so it looks like a tree. Now you have a chicka chicka boom boom magnetic tree for your reading/literacy center. A coffee can theater is a progressive story that you can use props with. Add the props to the coffee can and pull the items out as you read the story. Good progressive stories to use are If you give a Mouse a Cookie, Stone Soup, Three Little Bears, and there are so many more. They are fun and the kids can retell the sequencing of the story by using the props. Take a coffee can, cover with black construction paper, Cut out the center of the lid and cut circles out of black to fit over the top of the can and use the rim left from cutting the center out to hold the paper in place. Find pictures of the constellations and lay on top of the circles. Take a pin and poke holes around the pattern into the black circle. Put a flashlight in the can and turn out the lights. You can see the constellations on the ceiling. You can do this with letters, numbers, and names also. Cover coffee can with denim (old torn jeans) and use these to hold center objects - daily schedule cards, clothespins, counters, and/or rulers. to hold story props. For instance, cover a can with whatever you wish and write The Three Bears adding cut-outs of the bears from any peel and stick material. Inside the can there could be small toy chairs, bears, girl doll, bowls, etc., even puppets. Kids could choose a story to retell, then put all away in the can for the next retelling. Baby Food Jars Cover with tissue and watered down glue (liquid starch works too!). When dryed the glue will dull the colours of the tissue paper. For a shiny finish, use "podge" . This is a t is a liquid plastic that can be found in most craft supply stores. Cover jars white tissue paper with irridescent glitter. Once dry add a tealight inside. Experiement with other colours of tissue or glitter, or use other materials to cover jars like Autumn leaves. The taller baby food jars make adorable angels! Cover the body with tissue, add a heart shaped doily for wings, a styrofoam ball for a head, googly eyes, sequins for nose/mouth, a bit of yarn or curly doll hair from the craft store (cheapest in the craft section of the dollar store) and a gold or silver pipe cleaner for a halo. Use tempera paint (dry), salt, with baby food jars. Mix tempera paint in salt. The reason for the tempera paint is that the colors are vibrant and don't fade. You mix it with the salt into small dishes. Then the children will layer different colors of colored salt into the jars. Then you superglue the lids. The trick is to make sure that the salt is filled all the way up to the very top of the jar so that when the jars are tipped they don't mess up the layers of salt. Use sand, and some tiny shells or other found beach objects. Pour the sand into the bottom of the jar about a 1/2 inch thick. Then put in the tiny shells. Then you'll put water in. You can add food coloring to the water so it is a darker blue. Then superglue the lid onto the jar. make miniature terrariums. Add a bit of soil in the bottom of the jar pressing it down, a couple seeds, and add some drops of water. The seeds will germinate and the heat from the reflective light in the jar will cause the little plants to grow. After the plants get to a certain point so you can replant them. Cover the outside of the jar with tissue paper. While tissue is drying write secret messages on small slips of paper. Curl these strips around a pencil and drop each one in the jar. Messages could be messages of love to Mom for Mother's day, to a Grandparent for a birthday or riddles for a best friend. You can make snow globes. Get some little holiday erasers or small figures and glue them to the inside of the lid. Fill the jar with water and glitter and a dash of soap. Hot glue on the lid. Also, during our space unit one year, I mixed up some black art sand with gold glitter. I told the kids that I had some magic sand that had stars in it, and they were going to get to take some home. They had fun spooning the glitter sand into their jar, and then we glued the lid on, tied a yellow ribbon on top, and attached some star stickers to the outside. It also had some little poem about catching stars on it, but I don't remember what it was. They had fun trying to count the stars in their jar! Fill the jar 1/2 full with milk, put 1 Tablespoon chocolate instant pudding, 1 oreo cookie which has been smashed up in a sandwich bag, and 1 gummy worm. Then you put the lid on and have the kids shake i t for about 1 minute. Place a little clump of clay in the bottom of the jar. Allow the children to choose from lots of fake flowers and stick into the dough. Lids & Caps Save the caps from milk jugs. Write capital letters on them, and then matching ones with lower case letters. Paint Stirrers Paint stirrers each one basic color and then glue a large wiggle eye on the end. Use for "with my little eye I spy something red etc. Use in the library center. Decorate the very ends of them and have the kids place them where they got a book so they know where to put it back when they are done reading. They just choose a book and slide the paint stick in it's place and leave it there while they read the book. Then, when they are done they put the book back and pull the stick out! Film Canisters Matching Game Fill two of them with the same small items. For example, two with rice, two with a jingle bell, two with beans, small washers, gravel. Glue the lids on and let the children guess what is in it to make the sound and tell you if it is a soft or loud sound. The children need to listen carefully as they shake them to find the match. Variation: Fill film canisters with different things (rice, pennies, or feathers) use them for weighing projects (is rice heavier than or lighter than pennies) or guessing games (what is in this canister?) also you can fill 2 canisters with the same things and have them try to find the ones that match (2 with rice, 2 with buttons, 2 with pennies and have them match them, I usually will put matching stickers on the bottom of the canisters so they can tell if they made the right matches. We used them to teach sense of smell. Get different things with strong scents like vanilla extract, coffee, lemon juice, etc. and dip cotton balls in them. Put each cotton ball in a film canister. Poke a few holes in each canister lid and see if your kids can guess what the scent is. Make First Aid Kits Bingo I cut small circles (traced around a quarter) out of fun foam. I put them in the canisters. We used them for bingo and other games where each child needed a different color. They also used them for counters later when doing problems. I also used them when telling story math problems and several of my kids got pretty good at telling their own problems. I also used some yellow duct tape to make stripes around them and tissue paper wings to make bee puppets when we were doing an insect unit. I teach K and have a small class so this worked for me. Rockets use 35mm film containers for rocket boosters. For the rocket fuel use 1/4 of an alka seltzer tablet and some vinegar. You will have to experiement with the amount. Depending on how much alka seltzer and vinegar you use (or if you use generic alka seltzer) the film container can fly anywhere from 1 foot to 20 feet high. Variations: Instead of vinegar, try - soda, water, or lemon juice Instead of alka selzer, try - baking soda, baking powder, or flour |
| Prop Box Resources Include the following collections of objects and materials for children to create, discover, and use for imaginary play. Store collections in boxes or baskets to be accessible at any time (indoors or outdoors) for children to enhance their play. Toilet paper tubes Paper towel tubes and tubes from plastic wrap and foil Wrapping paper tubes, packing peanuts and bubble wrap Milk jug caps, pop bottle caps (all different colors and sizes) Cardboard canisters with lids (Stove Top, Ovaltine, Pringles, etc) Plastic parmesan cheese containers with lids (with or without labels) Plastic baby food containers Milk mix containers (Nestle Quick, Hershey’s, etc.) Butter tubs, sour cream, dip containers Yogurt cups, applesauce cups, pudding cups Hershey’s cocoa, coffee mix canisters Magazines, junk mail Juice concentrate lids and containers Scrap paper and notepads, appointment books, calendars Yarn, spools of thread, scraps of fabric egg cartons |
 |
| "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things
he can afford to let alone." - Henry David Thoreau |
| Curriculum Resources Art Dramatic Play Prop Boxes Fine Motor Games Language Math Music Outdoor Play Quiet Time Recipes Science/Sensory Fine Motor Themes MY BOOKS |
 |