Up-Cycling!! An inquiry into reusing old things and making them new & cool!

So last week we asked our students to bring in plastic containers, tin cans, buttons, ribbons, and anything else that they found in their recycling or trash that inspired them. We then gave them a challenge..... Make something new and useful! We told them that they couldn't make a toy or a sculpture but had to make something that served a useful purpose. Ariel and I plugged in the glue guns and gave them some books and websites to look at and then let their little minds explore and create! 
I took a "before" picture of their items and then an "after" picture of their creation. I made a powerpoint with the photos and had each student record their voice over their picture saying our version of Eric Carle & Bill Martin's book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?" We changed the poem to include each student's name and then what they created. We used the audio recording app on powerpoint because in the new term we will be creating e-portfolios so that we can keep easier records of student's speaking abilities. I will add each individual student's part in our "Grade One, Grade One, What Do You See?" powerpoint to their own individual e-portfolios once we get them started. This is not my original idea, I found this idea on Pinterest and the original blog post can be found here.

                                "Finn, Finn, what do you see?"

                               "I see a drum looking at me!"

"James, James, what do you see?"

"I see a pencil holder, looking at me!"

"Raymond, Raymond, what do you see?"

"I see a piggy bank looking at me!"

My little monkeys absolutely LOVED this inquiry and they made some really creative things! In English we have been learning how to re-tell stories and we still wanted to make and create so we made some re-telling rope using old ribbons and recycled paper! This idea again came from Pinterest. Find the original blog post here. Every time one of my students brings a birthday cake to school all tied up with ribbon we add the ribbon to our craft box, we had just enough to make 24 re-telling ropes. We also re-used all the leftover divider paper from their progress folders to cut out the circles. The kids really enjoyed making these as well and they got to personalize them and add their own creative flare. 

Story Re-telling Rope - Made with old ribbons and reused paper.