Five Ways to Use Plastic Protector Sheets in the Classroom

 This is part two of my post series Five Things to Start the School Year.  I talked about how to set up and use a calming corner in the classroom last week. This week's post is simple but valuable. Last year I discovered the many uses of plastic protector sheets. Again, it's one of those things that made wonder how it didn't know this before.  I listed five ways I used them below. 

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1. Handwriting Practice-Have a class set of handwriting paper ready to go inside of the plastic sheets with a skinny dry erase marker and felt square to use as an eraser slipped inside of each sheet. Pass them out to practice cursive letters when you have an extra few minutes. They can also be used to practice spelling words or as a rough draft of paragraph writing. 

      2. Document Camera-If you have a document camera, use the sheets 

          to project pages that you are using for whole class instruction or are going over as a 

          whole class. Since I have two Language Arts classes, this worked out great. I just 

          erased what I wrote on the sheet so it was ready to go for the next class. For 

          example, I assigned small reading passages on Mondays and Wednesdays for 

          for homework. Each passage had two questions to answer. At least one question 

          would ask the students to underline text evidence in the passage. I used the plastic 

          sheet with the homework page to go over the answers in class. I'd erase the marker 

          and the page was ready to go for my next Language Arts class.

   3.  Learning Center/Station Directions-Another use for 

         the plastic sheet protectors is to insert learning center/station directions. I liked this

         because I could number, highlight, add, or take away parts of the directions as 

         needed. In stations that had learning games, the answer sheet was also added so 
         the children could flip the directions over and check answers if needed.

   4.   Guided Reading Passages-Every once in awhile I copy passages 

         for guided reading time that correspond with the skill or strategy of the week. 

         I insert passages inside the plastic sleeves along with a skinny dry erase marker and 

         felt square for each student in the group. While reading we practice marking up the

         passage finding text evidence, prefixes, suffixes, root words, etc. Erase and its ready

         to go for my next class.

   5.   Check in Homework-Plastic sheets are a great way to check in 

          homework or anything else turned in.  Insert your class list inside, mark off who has

          their work turned in. Erase the next morning and start again. 

These are a few of the ways that I used plastic sheets in the classroom. I'd love to hear other ideas!