Teachers amaze me!  I particularly like it when they find ways of reusing items that would otherwise head for a landfill somewhere.  Scholastic Book Orders are very exciting for most students, but let’s be honest, there seems to be an excessive amount of paper that, monthly, appears in your boxes and spread all over your staff room tables.  True?

This week I happened to notice Stacie’s solution and re-purposing of the leftovers.  In the past, I’ve had students roll sheets of newspaper to use in the building of a whole number of three dimensional constructions and also as a base for papier mache building.  I’ve used newspaper in the construction of masks and helmets as well, but I’ve never thought to harvest the piles of book orders and create impressive sculpture with the resulting rolled pages.  Longer rolls can be made rolling corner to corner…shorter and stronger, directly across, edge to edge.  White glue is necessary just at the ending lip.  If you are going to use brushes for this application, thoroughly clean the brushes out with hot water afterwards as this will permanently ruin your brushes otherwise.

In researching the possibilities, I also found a few ideas that might also be explored using the same materials.  Here’s a relief sculpture.

Artist, Ophira Avisar and her creations with newspaper.

And while I often question the music and sound quality in these Youtube videos (Lol), this is the best I could find for making a newspaper roll paper basket.  I own a circular newspaper roll basket and really like it.  You could whistle while you build…:0)