Cardboard spools are such a fun resource to upcycle into all kinds of uses in the preschool classroom. The children and I started saving different sizes of cardboard spools about half-way into our school year and once we had a nice collection, we put them to good use…
When I say I collected all sizes of cardboard spools, I mean ALL sizes including these really big cardboard spools I found at our local box recycle place. There were six very large spools in all that someone dropped off so I gathered them up to add to our spool collection…
The rest of the cardboard spools I saved were mostly empty ribbon spools…
Now that we had a nice collection of cardboard spools it was time to put them to good use. One of our first uses was to engineer up a fun painting process. The children made their own paint rollers by pushing a small dowel rod through the center of one or more spools…
Once their paint rollers were put together, then the children rolled the spools through paint…
And then rolled their spools on paper…
This process is a great way to bring STEAM into the classroom as it combines the engineering of a painting tool with the creative art experience of painting with the painting tool…
For some of the children, the engineering aspect was what they found most interesting while others looked forward to the painting process…
I have some more ideas to share with you on how we used both our big spools and small spools as tools in the classroom so be sure to check back!
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