Whether you are a preschool or elementary teacher, there are times where we want our students to explore and be creative. With all the curriculum standards and the small budget, its hard to let our students be creative and bring creativity into the classroom, so its good finding multiple purposes for simple classroom supplies.

Art is a form of creativity and some ways to bring art into the classroom is by science and exploration. One hack is the old crayons that are broken or not working well and you are thinking of throwing them away. Instead of throwing them in the trash, recycle the crayons into a candle. It is something that students can do by leaving them outside in the hot sun, or using a magnifying glass, and even using a heat lamp to melt. Put all the crayons into a jar with a long wick and observe the crayons hour by hour and your students know that with their creativity they made a candle for the classroom.

Something we want is for our kids to be outside, we want them learning in new ways and helping all kinds of learners excel. A hack for outside creativity and for all learners' special needs, visual, hands on is using foam sidewalk paint that you create yourself and doing math or spelling outside. Below is the recipe to make your own:

What you'll need:

Two 4 ounce bottles of washable school glue

1 cup white flour

4-5 cups plain white shaving foam

Food coloring drops

1 gallon plastic zipper bag

Sandwich-sized plastic zipper bags – 1 per food coloring

Scissors

Optional: plastic squirt bottles (such as used for tie dyeing)

Directions:

1. In a gallon-size plastic zipper bag add 1 cup of flour.

2. Pour both bottles of washable school glue on top of the flour. Make sure it’s washable for easy clean up!

3. Spray about four to fivev cups of shaving foam into the bag. At first I attempted to measure it in a measuring cup, but it was ridiculous trying to get it out of the measuring cup. So, after the first cup, I just eyeballed it.

4. Close the bag and knead it for a few minutes until everything is totally mixed.

5. Snip one corner of the big bag and squirt into sandwich-sized plastic zipper bags to divide it up per color. I went with four neon food coloring bottles, so I divided it up into 4 smaller bags. One each of blue, purple, pink, and green.

6. Add 10 drops of one food coloring to each bag.

7. Knead each smaller bag until color is throughout all the bag.

8. Snip off the edge and squirt it into plastic squirt bottles. Or you can be frugal and just paint with the zipper bags. If you keep it in the bags, just snip off a tiny corner, so it doens’t come out too heavy.

With young students its essential for them to learn by doing and what better way than making their own paint and learning what colors mix to make another color. Using the book below helps students with the mixing of colors and the second picture is directions on how to make your own paint.

Whether observing or student teaching there is a chance you have seen close pins with the students' names on them, a great DIY for teachers to make colorful close pins is dying them in RIT dye. This could make for colorful pieces in the room or for color coding groups. It beats coloring them individually.

Nowadays we are seeing students who have different exceptionalities and with those exceptionalities comes difficult times that some students have during a classroom setting. We are learning of new ways to help these students overcome these difficult times and some ways that teachers can help is making their own stress relieving hacks. Try glitter and glue to make a calming solution. Or make your own stress ball by putting either playdough, soft clay, or beads that you soak in water and put it into a balloon and tie it.

I see time and time again, small children either leave the caps off the markers or don't close the lids tight enough and the markers dry out. A good way to recycle is soaking the tips of the markers into water and making them into watercolors.

Anyone who is going to become a teacher or is already a teacher, Pinterest is the easiest way to find teacher hacks and easy do it yourself.