Last Thursday our class went to the MEC (Molesworth Environment Centre. We learnt about sustainability and how to recycle some items we might have laying around at home.

We looked into making paper into dominoes/bricks and invitations, bottle tops into naughts and crosses and yoghurt containers into garden pots.

• Paper dominoes/bricks: The paper dominoes were made from shredded paper; the shredded paper was mixed to become mash. The mashed paper was placed into a contraption that squeezed out the water and we laid them to dry out on a drying rack to become paper bricks. We plan to put black dots on them to become different numbered dominoes pieces.
• Invitations: We used the same shredded paper technique of mashing the paper into water. We then put a frame into the water to get the paper out into a rectangular shape. We then laid this out onto a material to dry.
• Naughts and Crosses: We used bottle top lids to create these pieces. We mixed plaster into water and had to get the correct ratio before pouring into our lids. Later in class we will sand them down and decorate.
• Garden pots: We collected yoghurt containers ready to decorate as garden pots. We had so much fun creating the other pieces of recycle items that we ran out of time on our excursion to complete these. Since our excursion we have started to decorate these. You might see them drying outside our classroom over the next few days!

We had a lot of fun learning many new ways of being able to use items we have at home in a new way.