10 Tips for Laminating your Printables!

Laminating and packaging your printables such as worksheets and card games are so much fun! If you are an addict like I am, here are a few tips that can make it quick, easy and safe.

• Printing Ink: Your printer must have medium to high levels of black and colored ink. If you print in color and your color cartridge is low on only one color, say blue, it cannot use other colors to make more blue so all color levels (the little bars) must be 'up'.

• Paper color: The color of paper is really important. For write-on-wipe-off worksheets that are 'black and white', you can print on colored paper, even the bright fluorescent ones! These are especially great for posters, name tags and things that you need to POP out visually. It's a cost-effective way of having color without needing colored ink!
• Paper thickness: For all of my printable card games, I print them out on card stock paper or Bristol board paper. Why? It's not just for adding durability, it also helps to prevent the printed side from being seen from the reverse side. So students can play, without having to try to conceal their cards from their opponents' view.
• Laminating machine quality: It is preferable to use a machine that has multiple heat settings for different paper thicknesses. Older or cheaper machines may have limited options for temperature adjustments and this can lead to either under-heating or over-heating. If your laminator is too hot, it would cause the paper in the pouch to come out wrinkled with folds and dents. If it is too cold, it could lead to air pockets. The solution to both scenarios is to re-laminate it (pass it through a second time) at the right temperature setting, according to the paper thickness. This would iron out the wrinkles and seal out the air pockets.  
• Fire Safety: A good laminating machine should also have a safety automatic shut off (like a curling iron).
• Cutting: I recommend the use of a guillotine (if you are handy with it) because it really saves time on cutting.

• Student safety: Laminating and cutting a page leads to sharp corners. You can either stack the pages three at a time to nick off the sharp corner with a scissors in a curving direction for a smooth round off or you can use a nail file to round off the edges so that it does not seem obvious e.g. for playing cards.
• Even more durability: For super durability, when cutting out your cards or posters, do not cut along the edge of the paper or within the paper area, instead cut beyond the edge of the paper where the two sheets of the laminating pouch touch.  This creates a truly airtight and waterproof seal!
• Using Velcro: For sorting activities and games, if you need to stick one card to another, use little strips of Velcro (the kind that's already cut into little dots with sticky backs) so students scan sort with ease. I do not recommend tape because it leaves a sticky residue on your cards, it takes up more time for peeling, cutting and sticking, and it is tricky for younger students to handle.
• Storage for easy access: Store your printables in labelled transparent 'Ziploc type' bags for easy identification and so that they can stay clean without little fingerprints and juice-spills all over them!

So now that you know my laminating secrets, I hope you have a fun creating and laminating for your classroom!

Working with 3D Shapes

When teaching about 3D Shapes, the fun never ends! From my first year of teaching to now, I've realized that students love geometry and shapes. I think that this is because they enjoy creating and/or playing with actual shape models and it is a topic that is more concrete and tangible than most of the other abstract topics in math. In my class, my 3D shape center has more games and activities than other centers (because of the versatility of the topic). My students love them.

One of the games I created is this 3D Shape Memory Card Game to reinforce important facts about cubes, cuboids, spheres, cones, triangular based pyramids, rectangular based pyramids and triangular prisms. It helps students to identify these 3D shapes by their names, pictures, nets and real world examples. There are a total of 32 cards and they can also be used as flash cards. All you have to do is print, laminate and cut the cards out. Get it here at TpT or Teachers Notebook.

Do you have a New Year's Resolution as a Teacher?

I made two resolutions last year and now I've learned that I should only make one! I can't believe I thought I could start a school choir on my own in two months with at least two well versed songs. I was optimistic, yes... but not realistic.

So my realistic goal for 2012 (and hopefully it will become permanent) is to do more inductive science experiments no matter what obstacles may come my way! I promised myself that I will teach 'quality' not 'quantity' so it's not going to be about racing against the clock to 'finish the syllabus'. This year, I'll be focusing on the Do's and Don'ts of... the inductive method. I think I'll use a Sherlock Holmes theme (that was just by-the-way).

I'll save the choir idea for 2013!

My Students are Authors and Illustrators!

Last week, my students handed in their term projects. They created their own stories about a butterfly's life through each stage of development. Beautiful books were surrounding me as they all clamored for me to read theirs. I was really touched to see the effort and care that went in to creating these works of art. The instructions were simple.  I wanted them to stat off with a store bought construction paper book which is just colored construction paper that's already binded for you. Some replaced the generic cover with one of their own, others simply ripped of the generic cover and made the first page into the cover by just decorating it. The rules about content were strict: they had to portray they character at each stage of the life cycle and this had to be in the correct order - egg, caterpillar/larva, chrysalis/pupa, butterfly/adult. I loved them, I let them read their books to the class one at a time and while the stories were similar they were still unique in style and some even had hints of an impending sequel! lol. 

I felt very pleased at my choice of assignment for them because my students really felt like they got the experience of being an author or illustrator. And this should make them see more of their real potential.

Back to School Sale!

I'm loving this back to school vibe that's in the air. Do you feel it too?  I'm so excited to get back to class on Monday, don't get me wrong, I loved the holidays but now I'm just eager to get back with my students. I prepared some new stuff for them and I hope they like it. I know many teachers are already back out to school and the rest of you are going back soon.  So I'm throwing a back to school sale on my printables at TpT and TeachersNotebook - 20% OFF!

 

Valentines Day Cards!

I decided to have my students do a quick card making activity for Valentine's Day. I did one for Mother's Day last year and it was a hit! So this Valentine's version consists of eight cards - four are colored and ready to go - and the other four have color guides for students to color for themselves. The decorations on the cards are really cute and they vary to appeal to different age levels. Here's a closer view (on the right) of one of the blank cards with its color guide...  Grab it at TpT or Teachers Notebook!

Happy Valentine's Day!