Brick by Brick

I have a brand-new favorite thing - these carpet spots. I bought these from Amazon. (Note: I get nothing from promoting these. I just loved them and am sharing them with you.)
I bought them with only a vague idea of how I would use them. Well...they were on sale...and I had a gift card...and the rest is preschool teacher history. I just got them....

Most of my groups of kids love to use blocks. Often we will put out blocks with little or nothing else. The kids enjoy creating in different ways with the blocks.
However, I try to add different materials - just to stimulate more thinking and encourage kids to expand their ideas. Of course, recycled materials make great construction materials. This time, we added cardboard pieces (from boxes) and cardboard tubes...

I love shopping in the teacher stores (both online and brick-and-mortar). I always find lots of resources I'd love to have. However, my budget does not allow me to buy all (or even most) of the things I see.
Also, because of cost and storage, I need things that multi-task. I like those specialty educational resources but many times I'm limited in how I can use them. A great item that is inexpensive and can be used in lots of ways is the binder clip. Here...

When you think of bubble wrap, what uses do you think about? Packing materials for fragile items? Stress relief as you pop it? A fun item to add to a texture board? All are good uses. But we apply the rule "you can paint with almost anything" and use...