It's All About That Space (not the Bass!) When Laminating

How do you laminate? Do you laminate at home or at school? 

It's all about that Space, bout that Space, no trouble!

I personally like to laminate at school. But I'm such a miser, I make sure that I waste very little laminating film. I have a tip that might help you save on laminating if you do it at school. 

I know that if you use the at home machines, you only laminate one page at a time, so this trick probably doesn't make that much difference. 

This first picture above shows how most people laminate. They lay two pieces of paper side by side and push it through the machine. This has to happen if you need both pages in full size. 

This picture above and below shows how you can have three pages side by side to push through the machine. 

First I trim off the edges of the pages that  have a lot of waste that is not needed for my use. That makes them smaller and more easier to lay side by side. It's amazing that even by trimming off a 1/4 of each side of a paper allows you to put three sheets in at one time. 

Now aren't you glad you saw this? AND, who's going to volunteer to cut all this out? 

Thanks for stopping by!

Laminating Tips. . . (Just in case you do it differently)

I know many of you have the laminating pouches and the home laminators. So you probably do things differently than I do. 

I use the laminator at our school and I would like to share with you a tip that has helped save a lot of laminating film. 

Since I started following blogs and TPT, I have used a ton of laminating film. I feel that if our school is going to let us use unlimited amounts of film the least I can do is to be resourceful with it. 

I've seen some people laminate using two pieces of paper at a time. Set this way only two pieces of paper can fit at a time. (even if you turn them the other direction, there isn't enough room to put more than two in at a time.)

This is fine if you can't trim the paper.

These two photos show how putting two pieces of paper at one time in the laminator looks.

But if you trim off the extra paper on the sides and tops first, you'll be able to put three pieces of paper in the laminator at one time. 

It's not real clear, but you can see that there are three sheets of trimmed paper at the same time in the laminator.

And when it comes out the back, this is what it looks like.

 You can see the difference in laminating two 

pieces at a time versus three. 

I understand that there are times when you don't need to trim the papers. But in the cases where you do, you can save a lot of film by doing it this way. 

If you are wondering why I laminate first and then cut apart the individual pieces. . . I use just regular paper instead of card stock. So there isn't a chance that the film will pull apart from the paper. It saves a step from cutting them up into little pieces, laminating, and cutting all over again. 

If you're like me, 

I look for all the time savers that I can find. 

So that's my tip for the day. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you do it. 

P.S. Shown in these pictures are activities from Fern Smith's Froggy Goes To School Syllables

Story Problem Task Cards for August by Casey Turner from Second Grade Math Maniac

And my Back to School Pronouns.