Making paper

We have been learning about turning Trash into Treasure! 

We learnt about the process of using old used paper to make new paper. 

How to make paper
Rip used paper into small pieces.	Add water until all the paper pieces are covered.
Mix the paper and water in a blender.	Press the pulp into a paper making frame.
Squeeze the water out.	Leave it to dry.

We left the paper to dry over the holidays. 

What could we do with our recycled paper?

Recycled Musical Instruments

We have been learning about the 3 R's - reduce, reuse and recycle. 
We were curious about how we can send less rubbish to landfill. 
We learnt about reusing materials to make new things. 
We investigated different ways we could reuse plastic bottles. 

First we put coloured water into a bottle. It looked really pretty but it didn't make much noise. 

Drew suggested we put powder in the bottle to see if that made more noise. It didn't make any noise at all. We added water to the powder but it didn't make any difference.

We wondered what else we could add to the bottles. We tried some old popsicle sticks and paper clips. 

We discovered that 8 popsicle sticks were not as loud as 10 popsicle sticks. We liked the noise they made but wondered what other noises we could make....

The next day we bought things from home that we don't use any more. 
We had
- sequins
- buttons
- paper clips
- popsicle sticks
- cotton balls
- an empty lip gloss container
- used scrap paper
- marbles


Everyone got a bottle and put in their own combination of recycled materials. Logan wondered what noise ripped up pieces of paper would make. We listened to the sound the bottles made as we went to decide what we should add. Each bottle makes a different sound. Some bottles sound soft like rain and others sound like a thunder storm. 

 We then used recycled paper to decorate the outside of the bottles. We even reused an old plastic bag to collect all of our rubbish in.

What do you think of the music we made?

We then decided to form a band and sung one of our favourite nursery rhymes - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. 

We can't wait to make more things by reusing other materials we no longer need anymore.