What Would You Do With It? Wednesday #3: Plastic Bottles

I almost forgot this morning that it was Wednesday! With the long holiday weekend, I'm having trouble keeping my days straight! With that in mind, my photo of plastic bottles today is a little weak! (I store my bottles in the basement, and well, I didn't have time this morning to go down and get a good photo!) The bottles in this picture are not the ones we typically use. (In Michigan, any bottle that had carbonated beverages in it has a $0.10 deposit on it. We typically return all of these bottles and use water/juice/sports drink bottles for our projects, but you get the idea!)

I have been truly inspired by the work of some folks in Scotland. I ordered the plans, and have visions of "someday" scaling down their greenhouse plans to make a playhouse in our yard with plastic bottles like the ones in this link.

Here are a few things we have made out of plastic bottles:

Windsock spinners:

This was inspired by Family Fun. We opted to make ours into windsocks instead of staked spinners. We used sun catcher paint and a variety of other collage materials to decorate our bottles: (This one is made with a gatorade bottle).

We also made spinners by covering a bottle with colored duct tape and then cutting lines down the side:

Now it's your turn to share... What would you do with them?

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If you are interested in the previous Wednesdays, please click here! (Note, if you share an idea on Facebook, I update the posts to add those suggestions!)

A Few Ideas With Marker Caps (As Promised)

Yesterday, I hope I convinced you not to throw away your markers that "don't work." Today, I will share with you a few ideas for what to do with all of the caps. The possibilities are nearly endless, but here are a few of our recent creations: 1) A Leprechaun/Fairy Ladder/Rope Ladder: 2) #1 if not permanently secured can also double as a rope bridge: 3) #1/#2 can also be made into a train track for your homemade trains :). (No photo available) 4) You can use them as beads for a necklace: 5) You could make them into a wind chime. (No photo available). 6. You can use them as small manipulatives to count, sort, and make patterns with. (No photo available). 7) You could use them as playing pieces in your own homemade board game. (No photo available). 8) You could put them on a wire and glue them in place to make a twirling whirly-gig. 9) You could top them with a lid from a milk jug to make tiny tables or toadstools. 10) You could make them...

Easter Egg Caterpillars!

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Xylophones and Outdoor Music (Originally posted May 2010)

These posts were originally published in May of 2010. Our music area has been updated quite a bit since then, but it will give you some basic instructions for creating the xylophone. I've wanted to make an outdoor area for music for quite some time. We had a new fence installed around the play area, and my thought was to put a HUGE xylophone on the fence, like the one we saw mounted on the wall at the U.P. Children's Museum. However, after being inspired with additional ideas for an outdoor area through following Teach Preschool on Facebook, we have opted to create an entire section of our outdoor play space to making music! The first project for our Music area was a Giant Xylophone. Here are a few photos as we worked to put it together. This photo is of our temporary installation. Due to the size of the xylophone, we need to reinforce it with wood, as the string is not strong enough to account for gravity. The xylophone is made out of scrap 2x4 pieces...

Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

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