Yes, you can!

I'm stuck on recycling and the "budget" approves. Extra pencil and pens will be stored in empty paint tins (donated by a local hardware store). I may not be finished with paint cans as Martha Stewart has a clever suggestion for Paint-Can Cubbies over at her crafting site.

Brown Bag Book Cover

Covering a textbook is as easy as wrapping a present. It's a fun project for students. It only takes a few minutes and will help books last longer. I suggest using the brown grocery bag. It allows students to personalize the cover of the book. In a way, that gives students ownership and pride in our school books.

There's a great tutorial at Howcast that my class will watch before we put covers on the textbooks.

Newspaper Flowers

I'm still recycling. I made these flowers with instructions from Redtedsart Blog. They are super cute and easy to make. My students could craft these for special events at school: Grandparents' Day, Mother's Day, Staff Appreciation, PTA recognition, etc.

I wanted to continue the newspaper theme for my classroom recycling display, so I used old newspaper. The flowers could be made using magazines for added color.

A circle cutter is a useful tool for a teacher's toolbox.

Extra! Extra!

This year I will continue to help students understand the importance of recycling. I use lessons found at Scholastic.

Last night I made this basket from old newspaper. I'm going to create a display of recycled art projects and place them next to our paper recycling bin. The idea is to encourage students to incorporate salvaged, reused, or recycled materials in projects.

The directions for the basket can be found at craftstylish. Once my paper strips were folded, I ironed them. The strips laid extremely flat which made them so easy to work with. Instead of topping the basket with ribbon, I fed newspaper strips through my computer printer to create the reduce, reuse, recycle band for the basket top. I must do this project with my students.      Be-weave me, it's fun!

Both my sons had a paper route.

I'd forgot how messy newspaper can be.

Crayola Leftolas

As I prepare my classroom for the start of the school year, I need to clean and organize supplies. I went through containers of crayons and came up with a big pile of broken crayons and larger, yet worn down ones. This morning I took a detour from setting up my classroom and played with crayola “leftolas.” A friend suggested I melt some into one great big crayon. I have never attempted this so I went to the Internet for a “how-to.”







1. Preheat oven to 250

2. Put some crayon pieces in a muffin cup. I used Reynolds extra large foil baking cups to line my muffin tins.

3. Bake approximately 10 minutes or until the crayon pieces melt.

4. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

5. Peel off the foil muffin cups.

6. Name the crayon. Mine will be “Safari.”


I’m leaving the old crayons in my classroom so students can create new giant multi-colored crayons. Each student will get to name his or her color. We are going to gift these to our first grade reading buddies. These crayons are great for little hands. Younger kids can wrap their whole hand around them and "go to town coloring" without breakage.

It is so difficult to clean out a classroom! Everything has value.

The history of Crayola and the names of colors is fun to research. Check out this site.

"T" is for Trash

Here’s proof that even a trash can will add to a classroom theme. I chose to add pizzazz to these old metal rusting trash cans with colorful patterns.

First, I sanded the trash cans to get off all the loose stuff and smooth down the edges. Next I coated them with Rustoleum to stop the rust and then top coated each trash can the color I wanted. Finally, I used sponges and painter’s tape to create the animal print look.

We have a marked plastic container for paper trash in our classroom. Our school has a recycling program so at the beginning of the year, I use Scholastic’s lessons to teach students the importance of paper recycling. This site has everything you need including lesson plans, reproducibles, and resources.