What Not To Toss Weekend: Busted Calculators & Remotes

How many of you have wound up with one of those freakishly large calculators or remotes from the dollar store? Kid #2 proudly came home with the calculator version and it lasted all of a day before it cracked in half on the first drop. Time to toss that bad boy, huh? Wait! Don’t toss that! The outer shell may be toast, but the buttons can live on. A few left-over peel-n-stick magnet strips and scissors later … … we wound up with some fun, practically free frig magnets. And man have the kids had fun doing math problems on the frig this week. And while petty and childish, I’ll admit that it was fun last night to skunk my snarky nine-year-old who declared that he “pretty much knows everything about math, mom” with a simple problem using negative numbers. Um, Kid … –25 + 54 does not equal 1, nor is the square root of anything involved. And so that no one’s left out, anyone without a freakishly large calculator could just buy a new one for $1 and cannibalize it to make their own, cheap magnets. A small screw driver is all you need to open it up to get the numbers out, unless of course you’d like to just drop kick it a few times instead. Anywho … Overly Large Gimmicky Calculator or Remote? It’s What Not To Toss This Weekend! And hey, what else could you do with calculator, remote or even keyboard keys? Make push pins? Embellish cards? Art? Let me know.