“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”
– New England proverb
Everyday at school, and at home, we end up throwing away many items that could be easily recycled and put to great use in our classrooms. By reusing everyday products we can help to reduce waste, save money, decrease our carbon footprint and become more sustainable.
There are a number of ways that you could reduce, reuse and recycle in your classroom.
Create a Recycling Centre
Use theGarbage Bin PostersandProtect our Environment Posterto set up a recycling center in your classroom. Provide three clearly labelled bins for recycling, compost and rubbish and encourage students to put their waste into the correct bins. Set up incentives by creating class recycling goals and assign students to be the weekly recycling monitor.
Set Up a Worm Farm
With the permission of your principal, use the food scraps from your class fruit break, or recess, to set up a classworm farm. The compost from the worm farm can then be used in the school gardens or assist in creating a class veggie patch. The fruit and vegetables from the class veggie patch could then be sold to parents with proceeds going to a charity of the class’ choice.
Reward Environmental Heroes
Monitor students each week for their recycling efforts in the classroom and celebrate their achievements by rewarding students with an环境英雄奖. The student who receives the environment hero award could then become the recycling monitor for the following week.
Make Your Own Paint Dispensers
Use old soap containers and sauce bottles as easy to use paint dispensers. Remove the labels so that the colour of the paint is visible. Using the dispenser for paint will avoid spillages and students pouring out more than they need. These can also be used for glue. Use glass bottles to hold paint brushes and the lids can be used for small amounts of paint.
Assign Personal Whiteboard Erasers
Collect all the odd socks from your home (ask your parents to do the same) and assign one sock to each student as their personal whiteboard eraser. Students can use their personal whiteboard eraser when participating in individual and group activities involving small whiteboards. To create a class set of reusable individual whiteboards, laminate a blank sheet of paper for each student. To reduce costs, encourage students to bring in their own whiteboard markers.
Create Your Own Table Organisers
Put those old tissue boxes, takeaway containers and class jars to good use by creating your own organisers. Cut off the top of old tissue boxes and wrap them in colourful wrapping paper, then place them in the centre of your table groups as an organiser for stationary and other everyday items. A great way to have certain items easily accessible to your students.
Storage for Art Supplies
Use clear takeaway containers and glass jars to store small art and craft supplies, such as ripped paper for mosaics, buttons and glitter. Alternatively, use the containers to store hands-on maths equipment such as base ten material, dice and counters. By keeping these items in a clear container or jar the equipment becomes visible, easy to store and more accessible.
Store Classroom Equipment
Use old laundry baskets and recycle cardboard boxes to store a range of classroom equipment such as scrap paper, paint shirts, dress up clothes, toys, sporting equipment, games and books.
Design Individual Game Pieces
Ask each student to bring in a used water bottle lid to be their individual game piece when playing games in the classroom. Use markers or other craft supplies to decorate and personalise the lid. When it is time to play a game in the classroom, students can use their individual game piece.
Sorting Different Objects
Use muffin trays to sort different objects for a range of maths activities and to organise classroom equipment.
For 15 ways to use Ziploc bags in the classroom check out our blog:15 Tips and Hacks for Ziploc Bags in the Classroom.
We would love to hear from you…what do you do to encourage recycling in your classroom?
