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!

Because . . . . .

Do your kids have trouble spelling the word BECAUSE? If so here's a freebie poster that might help you.

http://bit.ly/1xdAbQH

There are actually 4 different colored posters here so you can put them around the room

Spring Text Passages by Miss De Carbo

This week I have been using Miss DeCarbo's 

Text Evidence  Reading Passages.

The students that I work with mainly need help with comprehension. That's why using things like Christina Bainbridge's Comprehension Snapshots and Miss De Carbo's Text Evidence are so important to me. 

I like that these are short assignments that we can finish or nearly finish in a half an hour's time. (Which is how long I have each student.) The information that they have to dig for is similar to what they have to do in many testing situations.  They aren't too long, boring, and drawn out so the child loses their focus. 

Our district takes a test called I Ready. I'm sure it's much like the NWEA assessments that we used to take and also similar to others that you may be taking. 

These pictures show my students using a passage from Miss De Carbo's set. 

The first time they read it, I ask them to read it aloud to me. I will use a highlighter marker to show the words they are unfamiliar with. That helps them when they go back to read it for the second time, they'll remember that this is a new word. 

 I like that they have to read it 3 times. So many kids feel like they need to rush through their work or test. These papers allow them to take their time and read it 3 times, (if they are honest!) Coloring in the raindrops at the bottom helps them to keep track of their honesty.

I have found these text passages to be very successful with my students. I know there are a lot of good things out there to choose from. But maybe after seeing how it's used, you might consider grabbing these for yourself.

Today one of my students was reading about Spring. The text in the passage said, "In the spring the weather gets warmer." But when we looked outside and found the snow falling, she said, "No it doesn't!"

This is what my car looked like when I walked out at noon. Since then we have even more snow!

In closing, I'll add a cute pic of my grandaughter just two days ago. I guess that's Michigan for you. Wonderful one day, crummy the next!

If you are interested in grabbing Miss De Carbo's Text Passages, just click here. You won't be disappointed!