Magazine Streamers

Magazine streamers may seem like a simple idea. In the states we make them at my school any time there is a celebration, using specific colored paper according to holidays and themes. However, paper and paints here are precious and pricey, so using old magazines helped us give some color, while cutting back on the cost. For this particular group I really wanted them to work on some of their squeezing skills, as I had noticed that some still struggled with using scissors. The staplers we used were pretty heavy duty, so holding the weight in their hands, and then using both hands to squeeze the stapler was a good challenge for these kids. I think they especially enjoyed the satisfaction of hearing the snap as the staple formed around the paper. The streamers were then added to decorate the room.

I want to also add that the curtains in the last picture above were Will's design idea. This class of older students was moved to a small room in the school, to accomdate a group of younger children who had been escaping out of this room as it has no door. The teacher of this class asked me if I could think of any homemade storage units that would fit in the small room. I was puzzled as to what to do when Will came up with the idea of making these pocketed curtains to hold folders and books for each student. We used some old shawls that were purchased at the foundations thrift store "Rainbow Resale", then the kids and I folded the shawl in half, and taped and stapled several seems to create hanging pockets in the curtains. Brilliant! Not only that but other teachers saw this idea and started putting up similar curtains in their rooms, adding color to the whole building.