Good morning eveyone!
Just a quick blog post before work. Here’s a list of bits and pieces I found useful when subbing last term. And they are mostly free, or items you would have at home anyway.
- Holiday brochures- both abroad and local. Can be used in English (create your own brochure) and Geography (list five tourist industries in Dingle town) I have a folder full of brochures and leaflets which I helped myself too from tourist offices around the country.
2. Paint colour strips- I recently took a large pile of these from my local hardware shop. Useful for teaching colours in infants, matching colours to objects, use for teaching colours in Irish etc.
3. Toilet rolls. Goes without saying! Someday, I will do a post on ‘100 uses for empty toilet rolls’!
4. The same applies for egg cartons, cereal boxes, old face cream jars, ribbons, jars, the blue containers mushrooms come in, empty sellotape rolls etc. Children will always find a use for these objects in Art!
5. Cuttings from regional newspapers. I ask my mother to cut out the ‘looking back’ pages from the Connacht Tribune. It is really interesting, it gives information about what happened in Galway in 1939, for example. I laminate these cuttings, and get the children to examine them and present the information. We then talk about the changes between then and now and we look at photos of Galway in 1939 and Galway now.
6. Jam jars, or any types of glass jars. I have rescued jars of six different sizes from the bin. I use them for the famous candle and jar experiment! It’s easy and free and is sure to impress!
7. Old candles, coins, an old fashioned cap, an old necklace, anything a child may perceive to be ‘old’. Keep them in the artefact box and build up a story around each item. E.g. a child blew out these candles on his birthday fifty years ago, I wonder what he is doing now?
8. Old clothes. I keep old sun glasses, old caps, hats, gloves, shawls, hair accessories, jewellery etc. (Don’t keep scarves- choking hazard!) I have a miniature dress up box. It is of no use for day to day subbing, but it is no harm to start up a collection- for the day when you finally have your own classroom!
9. Have maybe four or five old newspapers in your art box for newspaper collages. I did one once whilst subbing and it turned out to be most impressive.
10. These aren’t free, but you may have them at home anyway. I find if you have washing up liquid, vinegar, oil, food colouring and glitter, then there are at least three experiments you could whip up at short notice, using these ingredients alone.
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