Freebie Friday!

This Friday I am featuring my sign out vocabulary choice menu's. You can download them all for free! Plus they are editable! Check out all my freebies in my TPT store for more free items for your classroom!

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Laminator Review!!!

     I am so excited! And I can not hide it! My scotch thermal laminator T901 arrived today with the pouches. I just could not wait and had to laminate something as soon as I could get a few moments to myself without my littles running around. I can't risk little fingers and a hot laminator. As soon as nap time rolled around I was one laminating queen! One thing turned into 30 things very quickly. It came with an instruction manual, two pouches, and a feeder tray. It was really easy to set up and heated up quickly. Mine heated up and had the green light on it in about seven minutes. Most reviews state it takes about ten minutes.

 Overall, I was pretty skeptical. How could this thing beat the FREE lamination I can get at school? Well, folks I have to tell you that it does. Big time. That school lamination is thin and flimsy compared to this. And if your school is anything like mine, that machine is well loved and there is always a line of teachers buzzing around it during pre-planning. I am so impressed with the thickness of the film and how well it seals on the edges. It leaves a very thin border around an 8.5 by 11 paper. If you glue things together and then put them in the pouches it handles that very well too! It rolls nice and smooth like butter but has a reverse on it in case of a jam. There are two thickness levels on it. One for copy paper at 3 ml and one is meant for card stock and other thicker items (5 ml). It does get pretty hot after an hour or so. Therefore, I would not recommend marathon lamination sessions. It also smells like burning plastic while you are working with it.

 Also, once it gets too hot it is best just to shut it off and not do any more until it has had a break. I was a little nervous that this was going to take up a lot of space but it actually takes up less space than most printers. It takes up less space than my cheapo little personal printer that I use for my classroom. It doesn't matter if you do not fill up the pouch. I thought that I had to fill the pouch and tested it out with a smaller item that still laminated perfectly. It really does look very nice and professional as if I paid for it to be done somewhere. I took a picture of the lamination so you can see what a nice job it does. Please ignore my old beat up leather chair.

Why did I wait so long to get one of these amazing contraptions? If you are thinking about it, stop. Just do it. You won't be sorry! If you are looking for a good deal on one of these amazon has them at a great price. I have also heard that you can score the machine at Walmart. However, the pouches are the cheapest at Amazon. Oh, and in case you are wondering, I was not paid by anyone to do this review! :)

Mid-Year Move

I don't know about you but I DREAD setting up my classroom this year. I enjoy all the fun parts of decorating. But this year is different. I am moving from my classroom last year into another room this year. Then in 6-8 weeks, I'll have to move again!!! It's because there is some construction in my school and new rooms are being built to make space available. I wish I could just pick up my bulletin board displays and stick them up where I want them in the next room. Hanging butcher paper is not my idea of fun. I'm thinking about using foam board or tri-fold project boards to create my displays this year so I can do just that. Does anyone else out there have an idea for how I can pull this off?

Personal Laminator

My school has a lamination machine. That thing is like a dinosaur. Well, it isn't really that old. It is just well loved. One of the assistants does the laminating for everyone and I discovered last school year that it really doesn't do a great job we put a student project through the machine and went to cut it out and all the film peeled and bubbled apart. I resorted to taping the film together in hopes of salvaging the project. That was fun. So I discovered recently that Amazon has the Scotch brand lamination machines on sale for $25. Yes, you read that right. And the pouches that go with it are a flat out steal. I'm also a prime member. (If you are not a prime member, you are seriously missing out.) And no, I'm not being paid to post about any of this. I promise. I will report back next week with my findings!

A long overdue update!

Hi Everyone, I know it has been a long time since I have updated my blog. I have been very busy with life in general! Next school year I will loop up to fifth grade math and science with my students. Getting to spend two years with the same group of kids is a blessing in so many ways. But it also presents me with the problem of realizing that I need a new bag of tricks to pull from. So, I have discovered the land that is known as teachers pay teachers! I realized this place is an amazing resource to share and collaborate with others. So, I have started to place several of my resources on the site as well in hopes of helping out other hard working teachers in need of a little help. Here is my store: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Pencil-Monkey Please check it out and follow me!

Update and Picture of the Day

I know it's been awhile. I got so busy and side tracked with life in general that I haven't posted in a really long time. Since my last post I had a baby boy! My assignment for the 2012-2013 school year is fourth grade science. I am uber excited! I can go back to the interactive notebook format that I have loved for many years. I was researching some stuff about ISN's and stumbled on this great blog. Teaching all five subjects in fourth and fifth grade is daunting. I really love this idea I found on Ms. Heaton's blog about using a picture a day for a science warmup. It promotes inquiry and is instant differentiation for my students. I also love that this combines my love of photography and art with science. My problem? I don't have access to an LCD projector every day. The internet connection in the older building I work in also goes up and down on a whim. So I can't rely on the internet or an LCD on a daily basis. But I am not going to let that stop me.

2010 Classroom Before Pictures