12 Common Household Items You Can Re-Purpose and Re-Use

Teaching young children requires stuff. 🙂 As kids learn, they need to be able to touch it, manipulate it, and experience it for themselves to make it meaningful to them. A nicely packaged workbook just doesn’t cut it, in my opinion. But let’s face it. Stuff can get expensive.

One money saving tip I’ve learned over the years is to re-purpose and re-use the containers and items I already have and use them for teaching. Today, I’d like to share my top 12 favorite common household items you can totally re-use and re-purpose when teaching young children, giving you some free learning materials!

*Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Always supervise young children when they play with toys that contain choking hazards. Wash out and inspect food containers thoroughly before using with children.

1. Parmesan Cheese Containers

We use our parmesan cheese containers A LOT! The holes on top make a perfect place to slip in straws, uncooked spaghetti noodles, pom-poms or pony beads. Open up the other side and drop in dice, counting bears, or pennies.

2. Coffee Creamer Containers

I like re-using the coffee creamer containers that are clear so my younger ones can see what’s inside. We use them in quite the same fashion as our parmesan containers. Here NSis is dropping in old golf tees (still in good condition), that were going to be thrown away by a family member.

3. Peanut Butter Jars/ Mayonnaise Jars

We use peanut butter jars and mayonnaise jars for SO much. Sorting, dumping, transferring, containing dice when rolling for a game, storing markers, scissors…you name it! I love that they have lids that contain the mess at times. I also like that they are clear and I can easily see what’s inside them. This goes for many containers we use. My kids have been drawn to the clear ones the most.

4. Coffee Canisters

I love coffee canisters of any size. We use them for so many purposes. Our two most favorite are to keep markers and puzzle pieces.

5. Scoops from Powered Drinks

If you buy powered lemonade or sports drinks, I’m sure you noticed the scoop included in the package. When you’re all done with it, use it for play! Kids can scoop water, oatmeal, letter lacing beads, dirt, coffee beans, you name it!

6. Smaller m & m Containers

I buy these every year for my kids’ Christmas stockings just so I can re-use them for fine motor play! Again, we use small manipulatives, such as our counting bears to count or drop inside.

7. Bubble Wands

Bubble wands make the perfect pointers when reading with young children (they can also be used as a magic wand or anything else your child can imagine). Plus, they come in so many colors. Hammer in a nail on your wall and easily hang them for storage.

 

8. Plastic Bottle Caps

We have collected all kinds of bottle caps. Most of my bottle caps have letters or numbers written on them with permanent marker. We have used them with some of the activities from my free ABC Review Pack as well as Bottle Cap mats. (If you’re looking for more bottle cap mats for spelling, I also have some in the first few levels of my free BOB Book printables and the word family lessons from Reading the Alphabet.) Not only do we use them for spelling, I also keep larger ones, like milk tops, that are safer for my youngest one, who will still sometimes put things in her mouth. She likes to dump them, scoop them, or transfer them from one container to another.

9. Food Containers

Our washed out applesauce containers are used quite a bit as well. They make the perfect place for paint, glue, or smaller lacing beads. We also re-use the plastic trays from under the packages of mushrooms (the blue container in this post) or Chinese take out.

One of my kids’ absolute favorites is the container that I bought almonds in. I cut a slit in the lid and we use it to drop in coins or plastic colored chips. They love the clinking sound at the bottom!

 

10. Trays (with compartments)

We have old ice trays that we sometimes re-use, but we also re-use food trays with compartments (frozen food packages often have these). These work perfect for sorting, making patterns, or fine motor work. And they can come in all sizes and shapes, making it fun to use different kinds.

11. Containers from Other Educational Supplies

Many educational supplies that you buy come with containers. In some cases, I empty the contents, place them in individual zip up bags and store them all together in a bin. The containers are then used for other purposes, such as transferring, dumping or sorting.

 

12. Easter Egg Dye Cups

One of my new favorites is the little cups we used to recently dye our Easter eggs this year. They made the perfect color sorting cups for our family counters. (The white container you see being used is from Chinese take out!)

 

Storage of Free Learning Materials

How do we store all our containers and items? In one simple bin (similar to these). It sits in our schoolroom. The best part is that many of these re-usable containers can nest inside one another. My kids enjoy the freedom of being able to use the containers or items they want or need with freedom (as long as it gets cleaned back up when they are done!)

 

Follow This Reading Mama’s board Recycle, Re-Use, and Re-Purpose for Learning on Pinterest.

 

What are some free learning materials you’ve re-purposed and re-used in your home? I’d love to hear your ideas!

 

 

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~Becky

 

 ~Becky