The Many Uses of Old DVDs

DVDs get scratched from time to time in any household, no matter how careful you might be. As a mother and former daycare owner, I can tell you that with children around, DVDs tend to get scratched up even more than in a home without children. Let's face it, children love shiny things, especially ones that can be used in Frisbee-like form. Rather than throw away those scratched up DVDs, I decided to put them to good use and teach the children some lessons in recycling. One of the funnest projects we did using old DVDs was what I called "The Color Game". It's extremely easy to make and the children love it. It also helps the children to learn their colors and develop fine large and fine motor skills.

Gather materials. To play this game, you will need a Twister game, a group of children and at least four DVDs per child or team of children playing the game.

Prepare the DVDs. You really don't want to put too much weight on the DVDs because of the nature of the game. However, if you play this game frequently you may want to have the children decorate the DVDs with a team logo or their names.

Set up the game. To play this game, you need to first spread out the Twister mat and create teams or direct children to their positions. Each group or child needs to be standing at the edge of the mat with a column of 4 colors in front of them.

Play the game. The object of the game is to get the DVDs to land on the right color. The children stand at a designated spot and toss the DVDs so that they land on the right color. The "spinner" will spin the needle so that it lands on a color. Ignore the body parts listed on the spinner. When the color is announced, the children toss their DVDs until they land on the right color. Once all of the colors have been covered, the children all take a step back and do it again. As children get older, you might try having them throw 2 discs to hit color combinations. For instance, the color purple is made by combining the colors red and blue, so when the children hear the word "purple", they would throw the discs to the red and blue dots.

Other uses for old DVDs might include:

A snow scraper to keep in the cars

Iced pond in a Christmas scene

Wall or ceiling decorations

Mobile or wind chime

Around gardens and other areas that you don't want birds to be

Any other things you can think of to get creative with used DVDs!