The humble brown grocery bag is more than just a container for food. For the enterprising teacher it can be a handy teaching tool. Below are some ideas :

1.     Mystery Bag.  We all want to get students interested in our topic of the day. One way is to treat it as a “mystery.” Into the bag you can place various objects, pictures, etc. that connect to the topic of the day. Put a large ? mark on the outside of the bag and tell students that you are going to show them items in the bag, one by one, and they are to try to guess how they are connected. Draw them out one by one and invite speculation about the connection between the item and the class – for example, if you are introducing triangles in math, each item or picture you show should illustrate  a type of triangle. As you draw out each item, ask students to see if they can see relationships among the items. Record some guesses on the board but do not reveal if any of them are correct until all items are shown. Then ask students to make a deduction based on previous guesses and the items they see. This activity develops higher thinking skills as well as create interest in your topic.

2.     Character Bag. Use 1 or more bags for this. Each bag may have a separate type of prop or costume piece, or each bag may have a variety of such pieces. Into the bags put various types of hats (Goodwill and yard sales are great places to find cheap ones), props of different types –old phones, canes, plastic dishes etc. , and remnants of cloth of various colors (large enough to serve as scarves, capes, shawls, etc. ) . Activity: Divide class into groups and give each group a bag. They are to create a : play script, poem, song, character sketch, etc. that incorporates each item .  You could also ask students to create a character bag themselves for a character in a literary piece being studied. For example – what items would a character bag for Beowulf include: model sword & shield, Viking ship, drawing of a dragon, pictures of Viking artifacts, warriors, and maybe even some sample of student-created kennings and alliterative verse.

3.     Book covers:  brown paper bags make great book covers  - better than the commercial ones because they are cheap, sturdy, and invite decoration. Lead students through the process of creating the book cover and then have them decorate the cover with words, pictures, etc. related to the subject of the text.

4.     Research reports: Call it “Report in a Bag”. Students are to gather items, pictures, artifacts, etc. connected to a research report. For example, in science if students are researching  pollution, the bag might include photos of local areas where pollution occurs, water samples in sealed bottles of local streams that are polluted, and other items that directly or symbolically relate to the topic. Have them present to the class and use each item in the bag (and the bag itself) as a prop to help them organize and present their points.

5.     Biography in a Bag: Students research the life of a famous person(or this could be autobiographical) and put in the bag items, photos and artifacts that illustrate elements of that person’s life. Again, they use the props for aids in an oral presentation.

6.     Scrapbook: this project only requires 2 lunch size bag brown bags. Take each bag and fold the flap on the bottom back on itself, forming a sturdy edge. Now fold the top of the bag in half over the bottom. Hole punch 3-4 holes in the end about 1 inch apart. Do the same for the second bag, being sure to line up the holes with the first bag. Place the two bags together and use twine, ribbon, or yarn to tie the bags into a small ‘book’. Cut the two bags on the outer fold so that you now have 4 “pages” with pockets in between. Each page and pocket can be used for decorating. The scrapbook can be used for recording types of rocks, insects, or plantlife for a science class; types of geometric figures for math; character and plot info for a novel, or any other purpose you can think of.