I confess, I have a hard time letting go of containers. I can't seem to send any of those lidded copy paper boxes to the recycling. Only recently have I been able to stop collecting all manner of plastic food containers because my city now recycles them. I don't want to live in clutter. My latest conundrum has been what to do with the containers birthday cake and cupcakes come in. I was able to let go of most of them but I held onto one particularly cool one that I promised myself I would recycle at the end of the year if I haven't found a use for it.
Finally, it came to me. I can use it to create an enclosed habitat diorama for the pond.
I have been working on creating a pond unit for most of the school year culminating in a field trip to study a nearby pond.
I wanted my students to create something they could identify with that would be a lasting reminder of this unit of study.
As a class we glued sand to the bottom and a small stick from the playground for a log. We taped shredded green paper to the corners and then each student decided on a pond creature to add. Each student painted a small stone and added paper legs, tails and heads. We displayed our work prominently in the classroom and referred to it anytime we collected new learnings about the pond.
If you are a container person like I am I hope this give you a new way to think about containers.
