Pinckneyville Garden Keyboard Plant Markers

I help at Pinckneyville Middle School's garden. The other garden advisor, Mim Harris, suggested that the students use old keyboards to make plant markers. The students are excited about the project and put their first plant label in the garden on Tuesday.

Since the letter keys are limited, we plan to paint some of the unused keys and re-letter them. The kids liked a school employee's suggestion to make a garden key using the F1, F2, F3 keys.

Step 1: Supplies

• Old keyboards
• Chopsticks or wooden dowels
• Waterproof Glue
• Acrylic paint, optional
• Paint pen

Collect old keyboards. Since our husbands are in IT, the other garden advisor and I each had about 3 keyboards no longer in use at home. If your school or community sponsors an electronics recycling day, this would be a great opportunity to reuse the keyboards.

Make sure the chopsticks or dowels fit in the back of the keyboard keys. Some of the keys have round holes and some have square holes. We found it useful to have different size chopsticks and dowels.

Use a weatherproof glue. We used a glue I had at home and will watch how it lasts.

Step 2: Remove Keys From Keyboards

The kids had fun removing the keys from the keyboards. The keys were easy to pull off, and we did not need any tools.

Step 3: Glue Keys to Chopsticks

Using weatherproof glue, glue keys to chopsticks.

Step 4: Put Plant Markers in Garden

Use a paint pen to add the planting date to a painted key. Use the key letters to spell out the name of plants in the garden.