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Indigenous Artists in Canada

Recycle Old Art Projects 9 Fantastic Ways

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What do you do with old art projects that aren't really framing-worthy? There are lots of ways you can recycle and repurpose art in your classroom. This is a great way to get rid of practice work or those projects that just don't work out. Come read through these ideas and see what you can do in your upper elementary classroom today.

If you have a bunch of completed art projects or partially completed ones, we came up with a whole bunch of ways to recycle them into new things. Recycling art projects not only helps reduce waste but also encourages creativity and resourcefulness.

Before we recycle any piece of art, we encourage students to take a picture so it can be remembered but won’t take up space. This is so that students can see how they grow and change as artists as opposed to keeping it as a memory.

We hate wasting materials, so whenever possible, we recycle pieces of art projects and craft materials so they can be used again in the future. The last thing we want is for art projects to be thrown into the landfill. Sometimes we do art projects that are not meant for display because we are practicing skills. These are the ones we recycle first.

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How to Bring Indigenous Culture into Art Lessons

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Include Indigenous artists from across Canada in your art lessons.

Incorporating the stories and culture of Indigenous people is important to us. It’s woven throughout our subject areas, but we often look for other places to provide opportunities to bring cultures together. We’ve had several students who share their Cree and Dene cultures with us. Other years we’ve had no one in our classroom with a direct connection to our Indigenous People. We want all of our students to feel connected to the history of our country and the people who were here first. One way we do this is by exploring the works of Indigenous artists in Canada.

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