Helpful Mom

I have found an inexpensive one on Lakeside Collections for $19.95  What would you use a laminator for?  All kinds of things!  As I mentioned before I used mine to laminate the menus I made for my kids.  But I have also done such things as the following:  I made a picture schedule for my girls that is three sheets of colored paper with the days of the week along the tops that are laminated.  Then I printed out clip art pictures of all the activities we do regularly like go to church, school, library, stores, museums, friends, haircuts, etc.  We can then laminate those pictures and cut them out so I can tape them on her schedule.  That way they can begin to learn the days of the week and their order, and it helps with that question of when and where are we going.  I can point to it and say see today we are going to the store and then  to grandmas, and tomorrow we are going to the playground.  I also printed out the words yesterday, today, and tomorrow so we could move those each day at bedtime so she could understand about those terms too.

My oldest is obsessed with routine and ritual, and she really digs maps like Dora the Explorer.  And she likes to try and add items to her bedtime ritual.  So to end the endless items being added to bedtime and to help any babysitters understand why she’s fallen apart because they’ve missed some vital step they wouldn’t have thought of, like dancing around the room twice.  So I made a picture “map” with clip art that covered her entire bedtime routine.  It helped keep her from adding extra things to her routine since we told her she could only do what was on her map.  It also gave her independence because she liked to take the map and go do it all by herself.  And it gave easy directions to anyone who may be watching the kids who are unfamiliar with their rituals.  I also made picture maps of their bedtime rules so they could read the rules with me just by looking at it.  She was trying to add lots of extra rules to stall bedtime.

Other ways I’ve used the laminator is to create travel bingo games.  You create bingo cards by using clip art or pictures from magazines of things you would normally see on a road trip.  Such as a blue truck or a bus.  If you laminate your sheets then the kids can use dry erase markers to circle what they spot until they get bingo.  I created a couple different sheets so they aren’t looking for the same things at the same time.

And I’m currently working on cutting out pictures from sales flyers of items we regularly buy at the grocery stores so the girls can do a scavenger hunt.  I can circle the items that we will be looking for that week and they can help me look for them while we go through the grocery store.

To find lots of great FREE clip art you can check out MicroSoft’s Website.