Often teachers find everyday materials and find a new way to use them in the classroom. It's a part of the job that sticks with you and even in the summer I see items in a new way and try to find new ways to help my students learn difficult concepts.  I have noticed that even retired teachers can't turn their brains off and even though they may not have a class anymore they still continue to look for new materials for the classroom. Here is one of my examples from my classroom: skein of yarn (AKA: Chromosome) it might look like a skein of yarn to you...but to a biology teacher (like myself) and to my students it represents a chromosome. Because it is just like DNA that has been all coiled up and packaged so that it is easy to move in the cell.      Could you imagine if they sold yarn uncoiled in the store like this? Uncoiled yarn (AKA: DNA in the cell in Interphase) Yarn uncolied a...