Don't just recycle those markers!

Crayola markers. Love them. Love the smell, love the crispness of the first thick line drawn on bright white paper, love the perfect little "click" of the cap being replaced every time a student uses a marker. 

WAIT. What!? The cover is lost? Oh, try to find another one you could borrow for now so the marker doesn't dry up. It's already dried up? Ok. That's cool. 

Yes, it's true. I have a love/hate relationship with markers. Whether or not kids are putting the caps back on markers or they are truly dried up from use, markers will fill our landfills and must be recycled. I'm sure you've seen the cool things people do to make the most of every marker ever made... Like this or this or even this!  I will never do this. I'm not pinterest-worthy, BUUUUUUUT, I will do this every time I need to weed out my markers.  I will recycle our classroom markers, but I will also make each of these minutes count by including the students in on the chore AND practicing writing our sight words! 

Here was my issue: It was the end of the semester and we needed to switch out the markers from our table spots and centers. Many were dried up and had caps missing. This would take me an eternity to complete on my own, but can I waste teaching time to have the students help me complete this task? These are 5 and 6 year-old kids. Can they handle it or should I just do it? 

I thought, "Why not? I've wasted time in our classroom doing worse things." As it turns out, this was an awesome activity! Halfway through I decided to video what we were doing to show you here. I will never do this chore on my own again! 

Here's what we did: 

First, the kids labeled their paper on one side with the word 'yes' and on the other side with the word 'no.'  I used construction paper for this because it's big and we don't use this size of paper as often as letter-size paper. This small change already makes this activity a little more engaging. Plus, construction paper is not smooth like copy paper. This very slight roughness creates a resistance when writing and forces the child to strengthen his/her pencil grip. 

Next, I asked the kids to find a certain color of marker, for example, "Get out your fat orange marker." Each child had to locate this marker within their marker cup. For those that didn't have that specific color, they checked the centers around the room for one. 

Then, I called out a sight word. If the child knew how to write the sight word I called out, he/she would record it on the 'yes' side of his paper. If it was an unknown word, the child would copy it from the document camera onto the 'no' side of the paper. While doing this, the child was also asked to check if the marker he/she was using was still full of ink or was beginning to dry up and needed to be recycled. After writing and reading the word, the child then put the marker into our 'keep' box or recycle tub. 

Watch a short clip of this activity here:  How to recycle markers AND make every minute count!

This activity took about 15 minutes. In the end, the kids each had a current list of known and unknown sight words to take home and I had markers ready for recycling or additional classroom use.  The kids thought it was great and were very proud of how many words they could write without any help. For some kids, the words that ended up on the 'no' side of the paper became their challenge list...not a challenge I gave them, but one they put upon themselves. 
Another benefit that occurred during this activity is that I had one young man say to me, "Mrs. Pelka, I need to keep better track of my markers. I had to go over to the center table a million times to get the color you wanted." Another student remarked on how she needed to do a better job ensuring her marker clicked, meaning it was closed. She said, "All of my markers were dried up because I don't close them right." We have had these discussions many times in our classroom, but up until this point, I'm not sure the students actually took it to heart until they saw the effects of the way they take care of their markers. 

Teaching our students well requires us to find extra minutes in the day where there aren't any.  With the lack of time and resources, we as teachers must use both in the smartest ways we can.  Including students in the management of the classroom can be seen as wasting time by some, but if we include the students in these responsibilities, provide academic skill practice, AND make it engaging how can anyone argue with that?