Mead Laminator Review and Giveaway

My laminator and I have been best friends for quite a few years and I definitely cannot live without it. Sadly, it stopped working a few weeks ago and I was just about to purchase a new one, when, out of the blue, Mead contacted me, asking me if I'd be interested in trying out one of their personal laminators. They just came out with a brand new line of affordable laminators for the back to school season. Well, of course, I jumped at the chance for three reasons:

1. I needed a new laminator.

2. I wanted a really good, durable laminator and Mead® is a name-brand I trust.

3. Mead® is allowing me to give away a brand new laminator to a lucky teacher!

So, needless to say, deciding to review the laminator was a no-brainer for me!


Disclosure: I received compensation and/or products in exchange for writing this review, however, all opinions are my own. 


My new laminator arrived recently, and I was very excited to start using it because I had just created a new game and it was waiting to be laminated. I received the Mead® 12.5" HeatSeal® Pro Thermal Laminator.

Mead® also makes a 9.5" HeatSeal® Thermal Laminator, and a 9.5" HeatSeal® Pro Thermal Laminator.

My first impression was that it was a well made, attractive looking, white and gray laminator. No need to put this one away when not in use! I love the size and the fact that it is very lightweight. 

Inside the box was an instruction manual and a few Mead® EZAlign™ 3 mil Thermal Lamination Pouches. You can also use 5 mil lamination pouches, but I find 3 mil is sturdy enough for even my youngest learners.

See the grid lines through the plastic? Those really come in handy when you're trying to laminate in a straight line. Once the sheet passes through the laminator, the lines disappear. Poof!

The laminator I chose has a maximum document width of 12 1/2", which is perfect for laminating letter sized documents.
 The laminator itself is 18 1/2" x 5 x 3".

It isn't very wide, so it doesn't take up a lot of desk space. 

The on/off switch is in the back, along with the switch for the 3 mil, 5 mil, and cold settings. The cold setting is for the cold adhesive or pressure-sensitive pouches (not included.) There is also a jam release lever to quickly clear jammed or misfed pouches.

So, let's see how well this baby works!

The laminator heated up in about three minutes, which is way faster than my old laminator. I once owned a laminator that took so long to heat up, I'd plug it in and do some chores around the house while it heated up. With this laminator, I don't have to do any chores! Woo-hoo!

The outside of the laminator didn't get very hot, so I was able to laminate on my table without worrying about damaging it. 

Once the green light came on, I was ready to start laminating some gameboards from my Spin-a-Word Family game.

The document passed through nicely...

and looked smooth and felt very sturdy, when it was finished laminating.
 No bubbles. No flaws.

Time to laminate some of the playing cards and the spinner!

See the grid lines below? It's so cool how they just disappear!

*Laminating Hint: Make sure that there is plenty of room behind the laminator for the newly laminated document to come out.
 Now that's a mistake you only make once! #guilty

Here are some of my laminated game pieces!

Have you ever laminated something and when you cut it out, the laminate peeled away? That is a laminating nightmare! Well, no worries here. Everything I cut out came out perfectly!

Who's ready to play Spin-a-Word Family?

I am incredibly pleased with my Mead® laminator and I'm sure we will be best friends for a long time!

Here's what I love best about it:

It's small and lightweight.
It's very attractive.
It heats up quickly.
The outside of the machine doesn't get very hot.
The sheets go through at a nice pace.
My laminated pieces are smooth and sturdy.
The laminate doesn't peel away when I cut out my pieces.

You can find the laminators on amazon.com or mead.com.

Mead® 9.5" HeatSeal® Thermal Laminator

Mead® 9.5" HeatSeal® Pro Thermal Laminator

Mead® 12.5" HeatSeal® Pro Thermal Laminator

You can also follow Mead® on facebook and instagram!

So, now that you've heard all about my new best friend, I'm sure you are ready to try and win a laminator of your very own. 

Actually, the lucky winner will also win a box of 50 Mead® EZAlign™ 3 mil Thermal Lamination Pouches. Not only do the pouches have the grid lines, but they can also be cut to size and the remaining laminate can be saved for future lamination needs!

Enter the giveaway using the rafflecopter below. There are lots of ways to enter. The more you choose, the greater your chances are of winning. Please enter with integrity. All entries will be verified before the winner is announced.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good news! Mrs. Wheeler's First Grade is also giving away a Mead® laminator! Head on over to her blog to enter her giveaway and double your chances of winning this great prize!

Let's Label, Draw, and Write the Whole Year Through!

Looking for a simple way to incorporate labeling, drawing, and writing in your kindergarten or first grade classroom all year long?

How about a way for you to integrate science and language arts all year long?

If you answered yes to these questions, keep reading!

If you answered no to these questions, keep reading! ;)

Integrating science and language arts has never been easier!

Let's Label, Draw, and Write is a series that encourages young learners to label, draw, and write about all kinds of animals and insects.

Students will label, draw, and write about...

Farm Animals

Zoo Animals

Forest Animals

Insects

Pets

Arctic Animals

Ocean Animals

Here's an in-depth look at what's included in this bundle!

As you can see, this resource will give your students a plethora of labeling, drawing, and writing activities during the entire school year. They are fun and engaging for the students and easy to prep for you!

Don't need the entire bundle?

No problem! You can purchase just the packs you need!

I hope you enjoy this resource as much as I do!

PS: If you grab the bundle now, you'll save 50%!

That's a HUGE discount!

Hangman

Hangman is such a fun game to play and students will enjoy playing this guess the word game, as they learn and practice their weekly sight words, spelling words, vocabulary words, and more!

Students can choose their own words to practice, or,

you can give them a list of words to use.

Working on blends? Or digraphs? 

Have students practice spelling words with different phonics patterns.

Learning about contractions or compound words?

Keep a supply of all the boards ready to go!

Once you move on to a new skill, keep the old boards out for review.

Learning about nouns? Or verbs?

Students can even practice spelling words from the different parts of speech.

Hangman is such a fun game and your students will surely enjoy playing each week.

Click here to see Hangman in my store!

CVC Words Digital Resource

I've been creating resources for primary teachers for many years and I'm so excited to present my very first interactive resource!

Interactive games make learning fun, and students who are having fun while learning, are more motivated to pay attention and stay focused on the subject.

This highly engaging CVC word game will definitely engage and motivate your students. To play, students look at pictures of CVC words and choose the word that names the picture. There are two separate PowerPoint presentations, each with 6 different games, for a total of 12 games. There are a whopping 230 interactive slides!

These games can be played on any device that has PowerPoint installed, like desktop computers, iPads, smart boards, etc. PowerPoint is a free app. The games include fun sound effects and transitions that will only display properly when viewed in PowerPoint.

Once you have the game opened, students will see the landing page. Here is the landing page from the first show.



Students can choose to play a game with only short a words, only short e words, only short i words, only short o words, only short u words, or, a game with a mix of all the vowels. They will hear a clicking sound effect when they click on one of the games.

Let's check out some of the slides in the short a game.



Students read the three words and click on the word that names the picture. They will hear a chime if they click on the correct word and be taken to this slide:



Then, they click on the arrow to go to the next slide. They will hear a clicking sound effect when they click on the arrow.

But, what if they made a mistake and clicked on the wrong word?



They will hear a clank and be taken to the Oops slide. They will hear a click when they click on the mouse and be taken back to the slide with the words so they can try again.

The children work their way through the games. Each game has 115 interactive slides. They can go back to the landing page at any time by clicking on the home button.



They will have so much fun looking at the cute pictures, reading the words, transitioning through the different slides, and listening to the different sounds, that they won't even realize they are learning!

I included 12 different recording sheets, just in case you want your students to document their learning. They are also great for extending the activities and maximizing learning. But, they are optional and do not need to be used.

For those of you who have never used interactive PowerPoint presentations with your students, I included step-by-step directions on how to get the games onto your student iPads, as well as, directions on how the children play the games. Picture support is included.

Now that you've seen the games in detail, it's time to grab them for your students and give them the opportunity to learn and practice reading tons and tons of CVC words in an engaging, motivating, and interactive way!

Click here or on the image below for more information!

Sight Word Sentences

Looking for fun and engaging ways for your students to learn and practice their sight words on a daily basis?

And practice writing proper sentences?

And practice grammar skills?

And practice letter formation and spacing?

And practice handwriting?

If you answered yes to all of the above, then look no further!

These sight word sentence writing sheets include 151 different sight words. You'll find the Primer, Pre-Primer, and First Hundred Fry Words, and words included in most sight word programs in kindergarten.

These sheets were created to help young learners gain confidence in writing proper sentences, while practicing their sight words. They contain just the right amount of support for beginning writers to be successful.

Students read the title and use the title as a sentence starter to write four sentences. Each sentence should use the highlighted sight word. Students use the words in the illustrated word bank in their sentences.

If you take advantage of teachable moments, such as using a/an correctly, subject/verb agreement, discussing the various parts of speech, and proper use of punctuation, you can REALLY MAXIMIZE LEARNING!

Once you have modeled how to complete a few of these sentence writing sheets, students should be able to complete them independently. It's so hard to find activities that young learners can complete on their own. Not anymore!

These are great for morning work, centers, assessments, interventions, homework, substitute teachers, and more!

You can try a free sheet by clicking on the image below and downloading the preview. 

In addition to completing these sight word activity sheets, students can also build these sentences in a pocket chart.

The same sight words and sentences are included in this resource. Instead of writing the sentences, students build them in a pocket chart. They read the sentences six times, each time using a different picture/word card.

Once you move to a new lesson, keep the cards from previous lessons available for students to assemble. Since they are all numbered, it will be easy to keep them organized.

By combining these two resources, you will REALLY MAXIMIZE LEARNING! Students will gain so much confidence and knowledge as they read and write sentences every day.

Even if you don't formally teach all of the 148 sight words included in these resources, you can still keep the sheets and pocket charts available for those students who are ready and able to learn more. We all have those high flyers who crave learning as much as they can, right?

If you'd like to see these two resources in my store, just click on these links:

Sight Word Sentence Writing Activity Sheets

Sight Word Pocket Chart Cards

You can also purchase both in a MONEY SAVING BUNDLE!
Click here or on the image below.

Help Your Students Get fit4Schools!

It's no secret that healthy students make better learners, and healthy learners start with healthy choices. In a perfect world, all of our students would be living a healthy lifestyle, taught to them by the adults that help shape their lives. However, the reality is, many adults struggle with making healthy lifestyle choices and we often pass this struggle on to our children.

Thankfully, there is a FREE health activation program from Sanford Health, called fit4Schools, developed in collaboration with WebMD. fit4Schools empowers children and families to do the simple things each day that make healthy lifestyle choices a habit.

 fit4Schools makes it super easy and fun to educate and encourage students to sleep better, eat better, move more, and make healthy choices every day. 

Sounds like a dream come true, right?

Are you ready to learn more about how you can easily incorporate fit4Schools into your teaching day? I'm talking 5-10 minutes a day! That's all it takes to change the lives of your students for the better! You can fit it in during a transition, as part of your required PE time, right at the beginning of the day to get your students motivated to learn, at the end of the day, before you say goodbye, or, perhaps little spurts throughout the school day would work best for you.

What is fit4Schools?

As I mentioned above, fit4Schools is a FREE program. fit4Schools resources and programs are aligned with national standards, provide activities to boost students' energy, and include weekly challenges. The fit4Schools system of resources and programs provide school programs, childcare training, mobile apps, websites, and more.

What are the Four Key Factors of Healthy Living?

fit4Schools programs and resources build the awareness that RECHARGE and MOOD influence FOOD and MOVE choices, that activate healthy lifestyle choices. 

Confused? Don't be. 

This essentially means that our feelings and attitudes (MOOD) and our level of sleep and relaxation (RECHARGE) directly impacts what and how much we eat (FOOD) and how much we exercise and keep active (MOVE).

Fun and Easy Ways to Use fit Today!

I'm sure by now you are wondering how you can easily incorporate fit activities in your classroom.

The fit website includes a daily fit tip for you to share...

Click the above link to see the daily tip page.

Weekly lesson topics and challenges...

Click the above link to see the lesson topics.

And exciting ways to help your students get moving with a fitBoost!

Click the above link to see the fitBoost activities.

fitBoost is one of the easiest and most fun elements to incorporate in the classroom. It provides an interactive way for you to include an activity break in your class. We all know that fidgety kids have trouble focusing. Brain breaks are a MUST throughout the day! With fitBoost, you don't have to think of your own ways to get your students moving.

This is what the fitBoost page looks like. Once you click on it to begin, it looks like a slot machine, scrolling quickly through tons of exciting ways to warm-up, move, and cool down. The activities are randomly selected. You can choose to use the one minute timer or not. The activities are fun, quick, and motivating.

Here's a warm-up example...

Here's an example of a fun way to move...

I turned the timer off for this one. 

If left on, it counts down for one minute,

as it does with the warm-up and cool down.

And here's an example of a cool down.

Three minutes! That's it! 

And in those three minutes, your students will discover how much fun getting fit can be, and they will want to do more and more activities at home and with their friends, making getting and staying fit a habit and not a chore.

Now that you are familiar with fit4Schools, I hope you're excited to explore it on your own and start incorporating the activities and programs in your class today. Register for a free account here and start showing your students how much fun it is to live a fit and healthy lifestyle!

The 2017-2018 fit Commit Sweepstakes

But wait! There's one more thing!

fit4Schools wants to provide teachers with free resources to inspire students to make healthy choices. This sweeps is open to all currently employed full or part time educators in an accredited public or private K-12 school in the United States. 

Enter to win one of these fabulous prizes..

The Rainy Day Kit Includes:

-A giant tower game

-A physical activity BINGO set

-Clever Catch™ activity balls

-A set of fitBoost cards

-Plus loads of other indoor get-moving games and activities including hula hoops, a dance CD, beach balls and more!

The Get Moving for PE Kit includes:

-6 SST™ Scooters

-24 ACTION™ ToppleTubes™

-A huge parachute

-A set of fitBoost cards

-Plus all the balls, Frisbees, jump ropes and more to make your PE class awesome.

The Classroom Active Seating Kit includes:

-3 ergoErgo chairs

-6 BALLance™ stability balls

-A Yze standing desk

-A set of fitBoost cards and Brain Breaks activities

The 16 winners will get to select the prize of their choice.

All prizes are valued at $650.00!

Click here to enter this AMAZING SWEEPSTAKES!

Please check out the fit4Schools Facebook page here!

And their Pinterest page here!

This is a paid post sponsored by WeAreTeachers and fit4Schools. 

However, all opinions are 100% my own.

FREE Hunting for Nouns Word Search

I created something that I know my students will absolutely love. They adore word searches, so I made some grammar related ones.  I made five common noun, five action verb, and five adjective word searches. These are no ordinary word searches! Students read 10 sentences, find and underline the correct part of speech, and then hunt for them in the word search.

I encourage you to teach the children about the different types of nouns and verbs so they understand why some words may look like the right answers, but aren't. For example, students will not be finding proper nouns, pronouns, or linking verbs.

Students can use the answer keys to check their own work.

I made a FREEBIE for all my loyal followers. If you download the preview, you'll find a FREE noun word search. I hope you and your students enjoy it. If you do, please come back here and let me know. 

Click here  and download the preview to get the FREE word search! 

Enjoy!

This blog post was originally posted in 2012.

Since I updated the resource, I updated the blog post, as well.