Have you ever put a lot of time and resources into a project and then felt bad when the program was over because you hated to throw away all your hard work and expensive materials?  Have you, like me wished there was a way to put the ideas and materials to another use? In a way I am blessed because not only do I get to keep a classroom and teach Monday through Friday, but I also am privileged to work with a talented group of adults in another classroom every Saturday at my church.  Though this group of kids are 2nd graders, unlike my 6th graders during the week, they are equally fun to work with.  I eagerly look forward to making their lesson for the week exciting and meaningful.   Today’s lesson started us on a new cycle so I wanted to change over the room’s decorations and welcome in Spring.  That’s when the 2nd time around came in handy.

sabbath school room

I’m sure you will recognize some of this from my Week of Prayer post.  I simply removed some of the science photos from it and added some sunflowers with construction paper.  Then I  put paper over the word power and wrote in the word love instead.

sabbath school room 2

The green banner’s hung nicely across the width of the room and created a nice focal point for the group as well as hid basement pipes and brick walls.  I certainly felt good about reusing the nice paper as well as being able to get the room decorated quickly without having to start from scratch.

Now you might say, “That works for her because she has a second place to use it in, but I don’t.”  I’ve been thinking about that myself.  There really are all kinds of places you could pass your things onto for further use if you didn’t have another use for them yourself.  In fact, a teacher who was retiring in the area just brought all her things to our school to pass along and I found this lovely  photo of a girl with shells among the things. The teacher had used different pieces of colored paper put together and had inserted curly black hair!  I am sure she worked long and hard on the making of it.  I thought it too beautiful to not be used again and so I put it at the door of my classroom  with some shells to welcome the students in.

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I challenge you to think of ways to reuse and repurpose your projects if not for yourself then to pass along to others to use.  Perhaps there is a child care center, a church school, a library, another teacher,  or a church that would be happy to use your things.   I’m sure there will not always be a second use for your great creations, but keep making them, as even the one time use makes a difference!