Earth Day Reuse It Craft

Are you looking for a fun and easy Earth Day craft?  Your students will love this project!  

To complete the project you will need the following:

• 1 can per student (standard sized)
• crayons, markers, colored pencils, etc.
• plain construction paper or copies of the wraps
• tape

You will need to do a little prep work for this project.  Send a note home to parents asking them to bring in a clean can, or collect them yourself ahead of time.

Begin by teaching a lesson to your class on the importance of reusing.  Some items your students might be familiar with reusing are: reusable water bottles, reusable grocery bags, reusing a box or container in a new way, etc.

Next, have students color their chosen wrap. I recommend using cardstock for durability.

Now you are ready to tape the wrap to the can, scotch tape works great!

Now students have a reusable pencil container!  They will love to keep it on their desk to hold their supplies!

You can download all the supplies you need for this project, including a note to send home, here!

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Kwanzaa

I am linking up with the I Teach First Bloggers this month.
We have some great ideas to share with you for the month of December!


Are you planning to teach Holidays Around the World this month?  If so, Kwanzaa is an interesting holiday for students to learn about.  I find the majority of my students have never heard of it.

I always start by reading a Kwanzaa story.  

My favorite to read is K is for Kwanzaa: A Kwanzaa Alphabet Book by Juwanda G. Ford.

After we read we paper weave Mkeka (em-KE-kah) mats.  The students really enjoy making these.  It is also great for their fine motor skills.  Some students catch right on, and some need some assistance. I always rotate around the room to help those who are struggling.  I also have students help each other as they finish their mats.

To paper weave, students go over and under the black strips with their colored strips.  Each strips starts the opposite way.  It also helps for students to add a dab of glue to hold their strips in place.

Once their mats are finished, they color and glue on the symbols of Kwanzaa.  We always have fun saying the Swahili words for the objects, and reviewing the meaning of each object.


To complete the project you will need the following supplies for each student:
8 1/2" by 11" black construction paper
1" by 8 1/2" strips of red, blue, and green paper- about 10 per student

To make the mats, fold the black paper in half, cut approximately 1" strips out from the fold line.  Stop cutting about 1" from the edge of the paper.

If you have a parent volunteer, they can help with these steps.

Click here to get the symbols sheet.

Hope you have fun learning about Kwanzaa!

Click on the links below for more great December ideas!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Contractions

Have you ever noticed how sometimes the simplest activities are the best?  A few weeks ago we were studying some of the most common contractions.  We had been using some of our Words Their Way activities to sort and notice patterns in the contractions.

By Friday I could tell the students were ready for something a little fun and low-key.  I grabbed some index cards from my desk, and my bag of elbow macaroni from my cabinet.  {Seriously, elbow macaroni is the best.  We have also used them to learn quotation marks, and commas in a series. They provide a great hands-on experience that the students will remember.}

I had students use their word cards from the week to write the contractions with pencil.  Then they glued a piece of elbow macaroni for the apostrophe.  Last they traced their words with a marker. They really enjoyed the activity.  If I did it again, I would also have students write the two words of the contractions on the other side of the cards.

This would make a great center too!

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