Gathering donated items

These items are generally easy to find or to ask for from your school, site, your own home, or students can bring in. They are usually waste byproduct based, so there is no acquired cost since the products are generally thrown away by the consumers. These are some items that can be useful in your classrooms, with a little imagination.

• Egg cartons,
• newspaper, regular paper, construction paper,
• cardboard sleeves from toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls,
• plastic lids or caps of soda/water bottles,
• small boxes (including cereal boxes, large pieces of cardboard, juice boxes)
• empty pill containers (with labels off), film containers,
• art supplies (pompoms, straws, cloth),
• empty cardboard milk cartons, bottles, milk jugs, containers, empty soup cans,
• broken crayons or short crayon pieces.
• Ice cream buckets, plastic bins, etc.
• Look for things from the Goodwill, Salvation Army, Dollar Store, Dollar Tree, etc. if you have to buy something.
• Scrap paper of any kind. Ask the art teacher if they have a discard pile for paper that was cut or discarded before it’s thrown away.
• Packing peanuts or bubble wrap