Classroom Marketplace

My daughter has the best 3rd grade teacher.  During a unit on how commerce works, she created a classroom market place where the students learned about how to operate a small business.  They used a class currency to earn money, then created products to sell at their class market.  The students could use the money they earned throughout the unit to buy items from other classroom vendors.  In partners, they had to come up with a product, a plan to make the product in a time and cost effective way, then decide how they wanted to market their product.  Parents came in as guests to share their expertise in business to teach the students how to operate a successful buisness.  I talked to the 3rd graders about having a booth at a craft fair.

As the day for the market drew near, students could assign their parents homework, so they could earn some of their own spending money at the Market. ( I earned $5 for making my daughter's lunch!)

Handmade crayons called Cupcake Crayons.  They were made in cupcake liners in a muffin tin, so the end result looked like miniature cupcakes.   The girls used coiled pipe cleaners on the top to make it look like frosting on top of their Cupcake Crayons.  So creative!

These labyrinths were very popular.  We came home with 2 of them.  They were made using straws and shoebox lids. You will roll a marble through the maze. The more challenging the maze, the more they cost.  The boys even went to the local shoe store and asked for their old lids.

Not just any old friendship bracelet, but Rockin' Bracelets!

Handmade cootie catchers in a variety of colors and patterns.

Water wands made from decorated straws and joke books.  This booth even had a demonstration area for trying out the water wands.

Love the marketing!  Makes you want to buy more than one, doesn't it!

The classroom marketplace was a hit.  Everyone learned so much and walked away with great handmade items.

Gardening at Work

My husband works in a nondescript building in an industrial area of the town, but that is not stopping him from planting a garden at work this year.  The idea is that having a garden at work will allow the employees to help tend to the garden and have fresh food they can harvest throughout the season.  What a great way to create conversation, collaboration and boost moral.  No one will be required to participate in the gardening project, but the hopes are that interest will spread and people will begin to help out with the watering and weeding during their breaks... especially on those beautiful spring and summer days when the outdoors are calling!

The kids and I came by with a picnic dinner and helped plant the garden after work one day.

Everyone helped to put carrots, strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, radishes, beets, lettuces, pumpkins, watermelon, cucumbers and sunflowers in the ground.

The garden is next to the road.  A couple of people stopped by as they were walking their dogs and asked what we were doing.  Hopefully this generates interest from the community too.  Planting a garden at work is such a great idea!

Bike Tires and Inner tubes- May Challenge Material

The Challenge Material for the month of May is bike tires and inner tubes.  I contacted two local bike shops Dirty Finger and Discover Bikes to ask what they had as a common waste (unrecyclable) material.  They both said that used tires and inner tubes are hard to recycle in the Gorge.  There are a couple of take back programs that take these materials, like Liberty Tire Recycling, but once again they are not programs that are easily accessible in the Columbia Gorge.

What can you make with the bike tires and inner tubes this month?  Turn in your completed project to the Columbia Art Center by Thursday, May 31st to have on display at First Friday on June 1st.  Please email me if you have any questions.  rethink crafts@gmail.com

Plastic Quilt Project

April has proven to be a busy month for recycled arts.  It could be that Earth Day is right around the corner, so recycled art projects make sense.  I have been working with 10 elementary classes on the Plastic Quilt Project.  After learning about where our garbage goes and decomposition rates, the students were asked to save the single-use plastic that comes into their lives at home and at school for 2 days.  Using the plastic that was saved, they created quilt squares.

The students were surprised at how much single-use plastic is used in our daily lives.  Many came to the realization that most of the single-use plastic comes from the packaging of our food.

Students in grades 2, 3, 4 and 5 participated in the project from Westside and May Street Elementary Schools in Hood River, Oregon.

The quilt squares are on display at the Hood River Library in the basement hallway outside of the Children's Library.  Come check it out!

Corks

The March Challenge Material for the Repurosing Project 2012 was used corks from the local wineries.  Here are some of the projects that were created with the corks.

Doormat

Hair clips

more hair clips

bracelet

folding chair

Cork/chalkboard mounted on reclaimed cabinet door

free standing initial my daughter made to represent her name

truck made by local kids

Sailboat made by local middle schooler

cork board and pushpins made from reclaimed cabinet door and used corks

birdhouse made by local artist

April Challenge Material- Woven Plastic Malt Bags

Woven Plastic Malt Bag

I know this is a little late in the month, but if you would like to join in the monthly challenge, the material to create with this month is plastic woven malt bags that were collected from local breweries.  The brewing industry is not the only one that has woven plastic bags as a waste product, but since I live in an area where brewing is so prominent, malt bags made sense.  Small breweries can use up to 100 bags of malt during a busy week of brewing.  I asked my brewer friend at Everybody's Brewing in White Salmon, Washington to save me some bags and he was easily able to collect all I needed in just a couple of days.

Create using the plastic malt bags and have your projects ready to turn in by Thursday May 3rd to be on display at Hood River's First Friday on May 4th at the Columbia Art Center.   You can pick up the malt bags at the Columbia Art Center during their business hours.  The challenge material will always be available for you to take in the studio.  Take as much as you need and  I can always get more! Contact me if you have any questions (rethink crafts@gmail.com).   I can't wait to see what is created with this month's challenge material!

After school Art- Celilo Falls

This month I have been teaching an after school art class in two schools as part of a grant for the Confluence Project.  " At seven points along the Columbia River Basin, an unprecedented endeavor continues to unfold. Here, where rivers meet and indigenous people once gathered, the Confluence Project explores the intersection of environment, cultures and a regional history that reaches back many hundreds of years."  I am working with area children to create art while learning about Celilo Falls which was once a gathering place for many native american tribes to fish.  Celilo Falls was flooded over when The Dalles Dam was completed in 1957, silencing and erasing the falls.

The children and I have learned about the importance of fishing at Celilo Falls to many native american tribes and have watched videos and seen pictures of what the Falls looked like before and after the river was flooded.  

 During the four weeks of this class, the students are creating fish.  They started by looking at pictures fish that we find in the Columbia River from brochures donated by the Bonneville Dam. The students learned about layering tissue paper to create different colors and created fish using reclaimed file folders and colored tissue paper, covered with Mod Podge.

The students are now working on abstract fish made from recycled sweaters.    They are learning how to work with recycled fabrics and hand sew.  I will post pictures once the projects are finsihed.