As I have mentioned a few times, I am helping my friend Tiffany teach a class on Wednesdays at our local middle school. Our class is called Environmental Action, perfect for her and I, huh? Actually, she got to choose the class, one of the things that I am so proud of, in this day of budget cuts, our school found a way to add a slew of electives for our kids! Not only are our teachers getting to teach things they have never taught, some of them for the first time in more than ten years, but our kids had a variety of electives that our district has never seen!
Okay, enough bragging, and on to the nitty gritty. Last Wednesday, our goal was to use up the huge amount of eighteen packs of egg cartons that I get donated to me. Although I love my egg carton donations, most families only use a dozen, especially once they learn of how rich farm fresh eggs are, so the eighteen packs were really stacking up. I had a stack about two feet high, and that is with them all laid flat into one another!
So, brilliant Tiffany found a recipe for Firestarters. We had the kids bring in old candles, shredded paper and cotton material. We filled the egg cartons with the materials (I found that a mix of paper and cotton works best) and then filled with the melted candles. Interestingly, you can just toss the whole candle in a double boiler, when you go to pour it into the cartons, any wicks or labels will separate. We even used recycled double boilers, as we had coffee cans for the water and smaller steel cans for the wax.
Let them dry, and then tear them apart. The extra egg carton that will be attached to each firestarter will be the "wick". Now, I have not tried any, because the kids have decided to donate them, doesn't that make a person proud, but I'm sure they'd make your fire in the woods just dandy to start, let alone one at home!
2 comments:
Sounds like a nice class that the children were lucky to have you guys teach. Nice to be able to recycle items too.
Hey I agree, for privacy reasons I don't think taking pictures of the kids without parenteral consent and posting them would have been a good idea.
I mean you'd need an actual signed form, not just a word of the mouth okay, so nothing could back and bite you in the behind with a she said this scenario in a court room.
Sounds like a nice class that the children were lucky to have you guys teach. Nice to be able to recycle items too.
Hey I agree, for privacy reasons I don't think taking pictures of the kids without parenteral consent and posting them would have been a good idea.
I mean you'd need an actual signed form, not just a word of the mouth okay, so nothing could back and bite you in the behind with a she said this scenario in a court room.
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