My Favorite Materials to Prep Classroom Resources

Let's talk about the 3 must-have materials for prepping resources. I'm Sasha Long, I'm a former special education teacher and board-certified behavior analyst. As a current curriculum developer and a former teacher, I have prepped thousands upon thousands of different resources. I've laminated, bound, done all the things. I've used every trick, and let me tell you what is the most efficient and effective for creating materials that last. Now you're spending your own time and money on resources. You want to make things that are going to last over time, that aren't going to get trashed, and that you can reuse year after year. So first up, let's talk laminating. This is the key. This is the foundation. I stand by a personal laminator. If you've been struggling with laminating because you're using your school's big laminating machine, first off, I'm jealous you even have one. I never was in a school that had a laminating machine, so I've always used a personal one. But I found even when using bigger machines, This is a lot stronger of a laminating process than those big school ones. So get a personal laminating machine. These are $100, $50. There's a range of prices on Amazon. You can have your school pay for it. You can write a grant. Personal is where it's at. You also have a lot more flexibility on creating resources within your classroom using your tape. Now here's where I'm going to get controversial on that. I have very, very picky opinions on the type of laminating I use and the process I use. If I am laminating a page in a book, let's say I'm making an adapted book, all of the pages in the book I'm going to laminate. I'm making my Easy Matching Weekly Workbooks. All the pages, I'm gonna use 3 mil. If you're new to laminating, that's like the weight of the lamination. I'm gonna use 3 mil menu size pages because I can put 2 sheets of paper in here and laminate 2 things at once. You guys, that's half the amount of time. So I'm definitely always using menu pages for that. That means if you're inferring here, I don't precut. Now, if you're like, what are you talking about, Sasha? This is a big controversy in the special ed world. Do you precut your pieces or not? Precut means I'm going to cut out my little pieces, lay them out, then laminate them, then cut them again. You guys, I have never, ever precut. I've only done it as a test to see if it's stronger. And guess what? It's not. If you use a good quality laminator and you use good quality laminating, you don't have to pre-cut. Let's talk about a time when you might be tempted to. So I'm doing all my pages, anything big in this, anything that's going to go on a wall like an anchor chart, a visual that's going to live on a wall, something I'm not touching. I'm using 3 mil. Now let's talk about the things that get touched a lot. PEX pictures. Your necklace visuals, those are things that have to be sturdier. So for those, I'm going to use 5 mil laminating, and I typically get 5 mil in the letter size pages. So one page at a time, just because they're harder to find in the menu size, that's going to be a much thicker laminating. Now, when I do 5 mil, I do not precut. I'm going to put a whole page that has different PECS pictures, different visuals, different adapted book pictures. Put that through, and then I cut it out. It does not open. And everyone's like, oh, Sasha, my kids are really rough, they suck at everything. I've worked with those same kids. If you use 5 mil in a personal laminator, you don't have to do that. But I do like to switch out my laminating thickness based on what I'm doing. 3 mil for the pages, 5 mil for the pieces. All right, the next step in the process is Velcro. Again, no surprise, guys, I've got strong opinions here. I swear by Velcro dots. You need Velcro dots. Repeat after me: I am too good to be cutting Velcro. Save your time. And people will say to me, well, Sasha, it's too expensive, I don't have a budget. You can save money doing it this way. I always buy from Feiner Supply. We'll put it in the caption. You have to buy the hook and the loop separately, it is not that expensive in comparison to the strips when you buy from them. You can buy in bulk and you save more money. Share this with the teacher, but definitely advocate. Ask your principal, ask your school, ask your PTO, PTA for budget. Do whatever you can to not pay for this yourself. I'm not advocating you paying for yourself, but if you're looking on Amazon, yeah, it's expensive. Thainer Supply, way cheaper. So I love the half-size Velcro dots, the half-inch size. This is what that size looks like. I feel like this is pretty good for most tasks. If you get bigger, I think I have one here. These are the 3/4 inch. These are pretty big. If you work with little kids, I like the 3/4 inch, um, 3/4 of an inch. That's what this one is. Yeah, 3/4 of an inch. So if you work with little guys, I like 3/4 of an inch. If you work with older students or elementary, I like the half velcro dots. Vayner Supply, you have to buy the hook and the loop, so the hard and the soft, separately. Alright, the last piece of the puzzle is the bookbinding machine. I remember the day that she came into my life. She is sturdy, she is heavy. You're gonna work, lift some weights when you pick her up. This is a coil bookbinding machine. A coil bookbinding looks like this. Comb bookbinding will be ruined very quickly because you can pull it apart. If a kid gets mad, takes a book and rips it, down the middle, that comb binding will open up. This, this is really, really hard to break. You have to rip the pages. I like getting two sizes. I like the 3/8 of an inch. This is good for worksheets, small packets. This is also what I always use for when I make adapted books, that last page that has the pieces, 3/8 of an inch. In general though, I do prefer a bigger binding. I like These, this size, this is 3/4 of an inch. This is what I use for all curriculum workbooks, and this is actually what I use for all adapted books, even if they're 10 pages. You know, Easy Matching Weekly Workbook, they're 10 pages, but they're thick pages because we are matching on each page. So I want a thicker binding. It's easier to move, it's easier to manipulate. So I like the 3/4 of an inch and the, um, 3/8 of an inch. Those are kind of a good setup to have. Again, donors choose, asking your principal, your staff. Once you have this, you will have this forever. I think this is like 13 years old, probably still sturdy, still working, really easy to use. All right, so those are my 3 must-have materials for prepping all of your class resources. Individual laminator with the 3 and the 5 mil sheets, Velcro dots, and a coil book binding machine. Having these things in your own classroom allows you the flexibility to create resources all the time. If you have a student sick, if you have a few spare minutes— I know, maybe that doesn't happen— you can start laminating, prepping, doing things in the background. I'm Sasha Long. I'm the founder and president of The Autism Helper. Click follow to learn more about resource strategy prep in your classroom.