Our Visit to The Scrapbox

Our morning visit to The Scrapbox was highly anticipated. All year long, children in our classroom enjoy building and creating with materials I purchase from this wonderful Ann Arbor establishment - I kiddingly call it my home away from home. I think I'm there nearly every other weekend. Finally, Elaine's and my class got a chance to learn more about how/why this place operates, got to participate in a robot building workshop, and got to shop for their own items in the bulk area. So much excitement and fun!

Sue was our workshop leader. She told us that back when The Scrapbox started, recycling was practically unknown. Everything was just thrown in the trash. This shocked many of our students. She gave an example of the type of thing that makes its way now to the the shop - a piece of auto machinery like she is showing here is wrapped in a bunch of specialized foam when it is shipped to where it is finally put on a car. That foam is no longer thrown away, but now reused and recycled here at The Scrapbox (and could even be part of someone's robot today!)

Sue read us a story about how important it is to reduce, recycle, and reuse.

Then, off to the workroom, where students got to use literally hundreds of items to create their own robots.

Here's a little cutie.

Mila seems especially proud of hers!

After this, children were let loose with a bag and a mission. They each filled a bag full of goodies from the bulk area to use for more robots, or mazes, or - who knows? Their imaginations are the limit of what they can create.