How to Recycle in Your Classroom

There are many ways classroom teachers can recycle everyday trash and turn it into useful treasures in the classroom. You'll save money and help the environment!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Ask someone in your school office to save shredded office paper in a large garbage bag for you. Then use the shredded paper to stuff your student's 3-D art projects.

2. Keep the colorful plastic tops off your dried-up markers. Recycle these tops as tokens for board games, manipulatives for color sorting or counting, or materials for finger puppets.

3. Have your students bring in ribbon scraps from home (after Christmas is a good time). Then give each student some ribbon scraps, glue, scissors, and art paper. Have each student make a collage with his ribbon scraps using techniques such as ribbon curling or scrunching the ribbon.

4. Keep plastic lids from coffee, margarine, oatmeal, and other products. Display these lids in your classroom, and encourage students to trace them when they need a circle pattern.

Tips & Warnings

• Challenge your student's to think of other ways to reuse things in the classroom.

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on 12/1/2009 Why not add two baskets in the classroom: one for trash and one for recycling (do classrooms already do that)?

Great ideas!