Lesson Plan: How to Create Recycled Pencil Board Art

Objective:

Learn creative ways to recycle common everyday objects that might otherwise be sent to landfills.

Featured learning skills:

Creativity

LESSON PLAN

Step 1: Preparation/Discussion

Discuss the importance of recycling
Create a list of commonly recycled items
Encourage students to think about how some items that, typically, are not reused might be recycled rather than put in landfills

Step 2: Art project overview/assignment

Pick a theme, collect objects from home and create a sculpture from entirely recycled used pencils by gluing them together end-to-end and side-to-side to a wooden backing board:

Size of backing board depends upon the size of project
Arrange the pencils to provide an interesting surface texture and glue additional objects to create a type of sculpture (keeping with the theme of recycling objects that might otherwise be thrown away, include old or broken toys, assorted plastic or metal objects such as pens, mechanical pencils, bottle caps, etc.)
To add additional background texture, use pencils with erasers and ferrules still attached, both round and hexagonal pencils, broken or chewed up pencils
Add a splash of color with acrylic paint over the pencil sculpture.
Attach eye hooks and wire to hang pencil art boards on the wall.

Pencil Art Board Example 1
Pencil Art Board Example 2