Why does laminating become essential for teachers? What do teachers laminate in the first place? In the classroom, the durability of my instructional materials is my concern aside from their relevance and effectiveness. Hence, I keep my flashcards for a long period of time. How do I do it? Well, I laminate.
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Why do teachers love to laminate?
Great laminating ideas that make you love to laminate
Teachers laminate for durability and reusability.
Teachers are great fans of laminator machines. In fact, I am one of them. Using a personal laminator helps me extend the life of my flashcards, charts, cards, and other learning materials. They won’t get wrinkled or blistered. With that, students can use them over and over again.
I love the laminator in my classroom because it allows me to pass on my learning materials to my students for the succeeding years. Thereupon, I won’t be reprinting my learning materials, making me save a dime and time. Moreover, the laminators can help save paper!
And I love the idea!
Since students are more often, using touching and using learning materials, I find the most reliable way of making those materials durable and safe to use. Thus, I laminate.
The lamination process in the classroom goes on and on as learning materials are coming every now and then to supplement my instructions.
Teachers laminate for health and safety.
Furthermore, the smooth surface of the laminated materials makes it easy for me to wipe disinfectants such as alcohol and antibacterial wipes.
Laminating provides a better way of making the surface of photos, letters, flashcards, and documents capable of cleaning. Consequently, those are safe for children to use.
Even though they will be exchanging laminated materials the entire learning day, you are confident that they’re kept away from germs.
Teachers laminate to increase student engagement.
Laminating teaching materials is one great way to make the learning environment engaging.
When task cards are laminated, students get excited to hold them. They also feel your dedication and effort as you really find creative ways to give them the learning materials they need.
I am really happy when I see my students participating in the discussion and in the different learning activities. That is why I do everything to keep them learning effectively.
Laminating some of my learning materials keeps my young learners motivated during a lesson. It’s very accomplishing. I know that increasing student engagement is a challenging role for most teachers.
I would say adopting the lamination process in the classroom really can help. When your task cards, flashcards, multiplication tables, and other learning materials are in good shape, most likely, your students are always excited to get their tasks done and to be at their best.
Also, using durable teaching materials enables students to use them without limits as they endure over time.
Teachers laminate to maintain an organized classroom.
For easy storage and sorting, I laminate. When documents have a high-quality professional appearance because they are made durable, you can easily pack them up and place them in their designated labeled folders.
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What do teachers laminate?
1. Learning Materials
Among my favorite ways to use a laminator in the classroom is to make my learning materials sturdy and appealing. Let’s accept it. Our students can be rough on what they use in the classroom.
In all likelihood, because of their enthusiasm and energy, they are passing game cards to their classmates as they interact and collaborate. Just imagine if your cards aren’t made durable. They can’t withstand using overtime.
For this reason, the following learning materials ought to be laminated. It’s the perfect way to protect them.
Flashcards
Flashcards are among the best resources for teachers and are excellent educational tools. They are a great help in drills such as in reading and math. You can get the most out of this piece of cardboard if you make them sturdy enough.
It’s the reason why I laminate my sight word cards and number flashcards!
Laminating flashcards is an excellent support to the curriculum. Moreover, when flashcards are laminated they are very easy to store. Such is a perfect addition to your organizational skills. Just get help from your trusty boxes or anything that can make the best container for your flashcards.
Charts
Charts are among my favorite teaching tools. They have many uses to effectively facilitate learning. Best of all, charts really support teachers when helping students who have learning difficulties.
You might be wondering what’s the best to do to preserve them and to extend their use for a long period of time without getting torn or twisted. This is where lamination should take place.
With your charts laminated, you will notice right away that your students become attentive, especially if you are using the best approach to keep them interacting.
Multiplication Table
Drills in math often involve the use of a multiplication table. It helps students develop their multiplication skills. If you’re using a laminated multiplication table, you are certain that the material bears students’ consistent use.
Honestly, when I was still an elementary student, my teacher’s multiplication table and the persistent drills helped me hone my multiplication skills. I really found it advantageous.
That excellent experience brought me to the lamination world. So, I am also applying them to my students today and to my own children. I am firm with my practice that lamination really helps to keep the multiplication table in good shape.
Photos
Students are usually attracted to photos. Which is why using photos and illustrations has been my best practice in making the teaching and learning process effective. I use them in my motivational activity or in any part of the lesson on which photos are applicable.
To keep their sturdy and to maintain the perfect color, I laminate photos. Undoubtedly, laminating is outstanding.
Interestingly, the laminated illustrations and images breathe excitement into the classroom. You can use laminated photos in your guessing and communication drills. Definitely, laminated photos are impressive teaching tools to feed students’ inquisitive minds.
2. Calendars
Laminating your calendar of activities for the school year boosts your productivity and efficiency as you can be guided accordingly. Having your laminated calendar on your working table enables you to track your tasks and activities.
Aside from that, you can use a typical calendar to develop your students’ cognitive skills.
3. Identification Cards / Name Tags
Name tags and identification cards are the best tools to help you memorize your students’ names. At the beginning of every school year, you encounter different faces and varied names which you need to recognize and memorize. When you call your students by their first name, you are setting a very welcoming atmosphere in the classroom.
Laminating student identification cards and name tags is a great idea. It makes it easy to use, store, and clean. They can be easily used with clips, lanyards, badge holders, or in any way your students use them as long as they are visible from afar.
You can customize and design the name tags using your laptop or desktop computer and print them out following the desired size. Then, you laminate them. Creating your laminated name tags is made easy with your reliable laminating machine in the classroom.
4. Documents
Laminating and keeping important documents go hand in glove. As you aim to protect your documents and to keep them in good shape, laminating is an excellent option.
By documents, we could mean not only student handouts but also their academic records. Having them laminated makes it easier for you to keep and organize them. Therefore, the laminating machine in your classroom is an excellent teaching tool that alleviates your worries that important documents get lost or deformed.
However, with the large volume of documents in the classroom that need preservation, you’ve got to choose the most laminating machine that can handle heap lamination. More so, having the right machine gives additional convenience that makes a big difference.
5. Signages
Signages in school corridors and in the classroom are a perfect display of safety measures. Now, that schools are returning to in-person learning, signages that tackle health protocols should be made visible campus-wide.
But before you post flyers and signages where students can read them, you’ve got to make those sturdy aside from being readable.
To resume classes during the pandemic, an important preparation to be made is to put up signages of hygiene and safety measures to promote the health and safety of everyone.
Lamination offers great options to keep important notices and signs get across the whole campus without being torn or creased. In other words, it can be a simple solution to communicate safety standards to the students as they go back to in-person learning.
6. Bulletin board elements
How do you prepare your classroom bulletins? How do you make sure your display can withstand your students’ curious little fingers?
When you use cute bee cutouts, for example, as you highly the spring season, how do you make them reusable and durable? To illustrate, there are ready-made bulletins on Amazon that aren’t laminated yet. So, to give your bulletin cutouts set a nicer and more durable look, why not laminate them.
Your designs get more attractive because your reliable laminator offers them a professional finish. The wrinkle-free results add some elegance and style to your bulletin decoration cutouts.
The wonderfully laminated bulletin cutouts look realistic on the wall. Your students will be more enthusiastic to interact with your bulletin because of its exquisite accents.
Conclusion
Teachers laminate to keep up with the curriculum. The laminated items make your lesson more interesting and engaging.
As you extend your best efforts to give your students meaningful learning experiences, you are making them feel really important. If your students can feel that, they will be more motivated to participate in the different activities to get things done.
The ultimate purpose of laminating the items mentioned above is to support learning. The lamination process makes your learning materials appealing. With that, students will be more committed to increasing their performance.
How do you optimize student learning with your laminating machine? I might have missed something. Shoot your items to be laminated in the comment below.
