Useful Ideas for Useless Items

Ever wonder what to do with those miscellaneous things you receive with a purchase or package, like the plastic tripod in the middle of your pizza? Do all teachers feel compelled to save them, thinking they might be useful someday? (It’s not just me I hope!)

I purchased a camera a few months ago. It was very small and came packaged in a sturdy, see-through, plastic box. I couldn’t throw that box away. Instead, I use it as a display case for untouchables. The students love the excitement and feel like they are looking at something rare and important. Plus, everything looks cooler and fancier in a showcase!

So send us your ideas of what to do with all those plastic peanuts, pizza tripods and the dozens of empty contact cases I have in my drawer!

Ann Marie

Pick a Peck of Pointers

Inspiring our students to want to read posters and word walls used to be challenging. Then we discovered the magic of pointers. Since we know our students enjoy variation as much as we do, we couldn’t just give them the traditional pointers with colorful wands and pointing hands.

Instead, whenever our students want to read posters and our word wall, we like to give them unique items to point with like plastic fruit, vegetables and magic wands.

Plastic fruits and vegetables are available at craft stores and Wal-Mart. We make the magic wands out of wooden dowels. (Color the dowel with black marker and wrap a piece of white electrical tape around the end.) Other pointer ideas include fly swatters, pencils with big erasers, plastic drink stirrers, sticks with pom-poms glued to the top, decorative pipe cleaners and chopsticks. The wide variety motivates everyone to pick a pointer and read. 

Turkeys are Hightailing it Out of Town!

Turkeys are always trying to get out of town before Thanksgiving. My students made their own terrified turkeys (from a picture I found online) and chose their worldly destinations. I snagged a clip art suitcase and reproduced it on cardstock. We used blank labels to sticker the suitcases with the names of our final destinations. We then added a picture on an index card of our turkeys doing something in that place. For example, this turkey in India is playing with a tiger.

We added to the theme with travel border and an “International News” sign I found in the local Dollar Tree’s teacher section.

Recess Tattle Journal

Children say the sweetest things like: “You’re my favorite teacher!” or “I love being in your class!” But at recess those comments turn into: “She’s chasing me!” and “He touched me!” It’s exhausting listening to the tattling. So let your students tattle in the Recess Journal.

Use any kind of notebook and cover it with a homemade label. Then be extremely clear when speaking to your students about telling vs. tattling. For example, “tell” when someone is hurt. Take your recess journal and some pencils when you go outside. When the students start coming up to you with tattles, hand them the journal and a pencil. They will have to take their recess time to write their complaint. You will be amazed at how fast students start to distinguish telling from tattling and decrease the latter. It also comes in handy to use a similar journal within the classroom and simply call it “The Tattle Journal.”

Solution for Chapped Lips

As winter approaches our students start coming to school with cracked and sometimes bleeding lips. We’ve tried the petroleum jelly on a Q-tip trick but that isn’t exactly convenient. So we ask our parents to send in a tube of lip balm for their child. Some parents even donate extras for those who don’t have one. If you aren’t comfortable asking for donations, visit a local dollar store and buy generic. We label the balms with each student’s name written on a colored dot sticker. If a balm happens to roll off somewhere it is easy to identify the owner. Choose to keep the balms together in a basket or separately in the students’ personal pencil boxes. We’ve done both and either works fine. All lips will be healed and happy!

Pumpkin Properties

It’s so easy to have fun with science. In order to become proficient in this content area, students need lots of practice making observations. One skill we like to firm up at the beginning of the year is using senses to observe differences in physical properties. Because this topic contains some difficult vocabulary we discuss it often. We like to use many things readily available during this time like apples, rocks, leaves and pumpkins.

Pumpkins are especially enjoyable because you can use all five senses to explore the physical properties. We created this table (which is set up to print on legal-sized paper) for students to record their observations as they explore their own miniature pumpkins. (Check your local farmer’s market for a class set of these and ask about a teacher discount!)

We also get one big pumpkin and cut into it to help students come up with additional adjectives to describe a pumpkin’s smell, feel, and sound. When we get to the taste column students can taste different things like pumpkin seeds, pumpkin muffins or pumpkin pie

What do you do to help students understand physical properties?

Glow Stick Reading

During the last week of October my students get super excited about Halloween. One way to incorporate this enthusiasm into the classroom is to read ghost stories, like Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara.

To  create a spooky atmosphere we turn out the lights, crack a glow stick and read by the luminescent green, orange, yellow or red light. It’s the perfect way to expose students to the great literature surrounding one of their favorite holidays.