Upcycling and Repurposing in Your Homeschool
Upcycling and repurposing, though often used interchangeably, are two different ways to help reuse items and save them from ending up in landfills. Essentially, upcycling is repairing, updating, and modifying old items to be used again instead of dumping them. Repurposing takes advantage of a piece in an alternative–often creative–way, and using it for a purpose for which it wasn’t intended.
There are so many ways these concepts can be used in your homeschool as examples of good stewardship and ways of reducing clutter and waste. Explore some budget-friendly, earth-friendly, and family-friendly upcycling and repurposing ideas in this Homeschool Living.
We homeschoolers love our books! Junk journals are an excellent example of repurposing old paper materials for use as a newly functioning notebook. Use them as writing journals, lapbooks, art projects, nature journals, and more. The possibilities are practically endless. You might challenge your student to create a themed junk journal corresponding to a particular topic you are studying.
Learn more about ways to make and use these journals here at Artjournalist.com.
Be inspired by these ideas for repurposing and upcycling sometimes mundane items into creative storage solutions that just might be the perfect fit for your homeschool area.
The best upcycling projects for our homeschools are the ones that provide an opportunity for students to create their own learning materials. Check out these 17 upcycled and repurposed STEM activities for kids and let students’ imaginations run wild as they create their own classroom tool with a DIY kid-made abacus, learn some basic engineering concepts with a trash tower building challenge, explore “green” science by building a lemon battery, visualize multiplication with pinecones, and much more.
Practicing regular upcycling and repurposing instead of consuming–and consequently disposing of–items which could be given a new life is a tangible way of teaching conservation and simple living and encouraging creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. What are some ways you’ve repurposed or upcycled items in your home? Are you already thinking of a new cool project to work on with your family?
Are you listening to this blog post on Alexa or Google? Get more solutions on upcycling at our website at www.heav.org/blog.
