As the halfway point to the school year draws near, this is a time for celebration! The long hours you spend creating lesson plans, planning projects, grading papers, and so much more, are recognized more than you may know. At Sycamore, we want to take this time to acknowledge that the dedication and passion all teachers put into educating tomorrow’s future is valued and appreciated more than words can express. It’s time for a laminator giveaway contest!
Sycamore is pleased to announce a fun contest that will culminate in two well-deserved teachers receiving a laminator to call their own. Follow the simple steps outlined below and be sure to leave a comment on this blog post, telling us how you plan to use the laminator if you’re one of the winners. We will announce the winners of the contest on Tuesday, December 17, 2019.
Save time and enter to win your own Scotch Laminator
Now let’s talk about the many ways teachers can use a laminator in the classroom on a daily basis. Here are some of the things you could create:
Make Personal Dry-Erase Boards for Students
Dry-erase marker boards can be expensive, and not every school can provide a personal-sized one for each student. With a laminator, teachers can simply place a blank piece of paper in a lamination pouch and voila! Each student can now have their own, inexpensive dry-erase board that they can reuse throughout the school year.
Create Flashcards
When students are studying for a test, or need an additional resource to help reinforce and retain what they’ve learned, flashcards can be an incredibly effective tool. Teachers can encourage this style of learning by laminating students’ flashcards as they work on spelling words, math concepts, and more. Making the flashcards for each individual student will help make them feel more significant and important, and will hopefully motivate students to use them as a study tool.
Laminate the Multiplication Tables
Math teachers will appreciate this one! In elementary school, so much time is spent on helping students master their multiplication tables. To assist in that learning process, multiplication tables can easily be printed online, slipped into lamination pouches, and laminated for each student. The laminated charts/tables can then be easily used as a reference as they gain mastery.
Other Creative Ideas for Laminating
- Laminate bookmarks for your students
- Create laminated bus tags for students to help them find their bus at the end of the day
- Protect board games from rips, spills, and more by running them through the laminator
- Laminate banners, photos, classroom rules, and other items for your classroom bulletin board
We want to hear your thoughts! In the comments below, tell us some of the ways you would use a thermal laminator in your classroom.
Carrie
3 Dec 2019I would use a laminator in my classroom in various ways. I would use it to preserve project example, student art work and items I would like to reuse year after year. This would allow me the ability to cut back on the waste used in the classroom and reduce the amount of trees being killed by the amount of copies I make. I would feel better as a science teacher to preserve the world around me and use less paper while still having the ability to show off my students work and keep it in pristine conditions while it travels home.
Reyno Abasolo
4 Dec 2019Flash Cards, Student Dry-Erase Board, Multiplication table etc
Anna
3 Dec 2019This would be a game changer – thanks for the opportunity!
Lisa Odom
3 Dec 2019I LOVE Sycamore! I LOVE laminators! This is great!
Holly
3 Dec 2019I use a laminator for content I know I’ll use from year to year for certain activities such as bingo cards, maps, and diagrams.
Karen Matthews
3 Dec 2019To win a personal Scotch Pro Thermal Laminator would be a slice of heaven for me! I am a very creative teacher. I create the teacher doors, bulletin boards, and other great activities within my classroom. To have my own laminator would eliminate me from having to wait for other teachers to complete a laminating task, not to mention not having to wait weeks for a new role of lamination to be ordered and sent to the school. I would be able to keep activities and projects that I can reuse each year in my 2nd grade class. My students have group activities and work boards that can be laminated so they will last the entire year. I would also be able to send assignments home for students to use with parental assistance. Having my own laminator will cut the cost of copy paper for me as well as for my parents.
Amy Gabay
3 Dec 2019Sycamore is awesome!! We sure could use a laminator!!! Ours smells like its going to burn down the school, so we don’t use it!!
Erika
3 Dec 2019I would greatly appreciate a laminator to share with my colleagues. I would use it to preserve some student projects as well as the ways listed above: book marks, covers for reports, reusable items such as signs, labels–so that I don’t have to waste paper each year. Just having a laminator would be great!
Lisa Wright
3 Dec 2019Sycamore has been such a blessing to our school! Grades and lessons are so much easier and it has improved our communication with students and parents as well!
We are a tiny school with no budget for extras. It was a big financial commitment to take on the Sycamore system at our school and I can say without a doubt that it has been money well spent!
I can only imagine the exciting things we could do with a laminator, but for now, I will just express my sincere gratitude for the Sycamore system and how wonderful it has been for our school!
Nikki Michalak
3 Dec 2019Sycamore is amazing and a new laminator would be a great Christmas surprise!
Elizabeth Naziri
3 Dec 2019I teach both third and eighth grade so I laminate most everything for durability. Plus, who doesn’t like to win stuff? And since our school has started using Sycamore, my life has been made so much easier with everything in one place!
Erin
3 Dec 2019I love laminating to preserve those precious resources!
Bethany Moeller
3 Dec 2019What a great idea! This would be so helpful in the classroom.
Peg Schwartz
3 Dec 2019I am excited for the opportunity to win a personal laminator. As private school educators we have to make our pennies stretch. Any possibilities that could help that would be greatly appreciated. If this laminator would be lucky enough to find a home at my school, it would be shared with co-workers. Personally, I would use it to create classroom tools and to preserve work students have created. Thank you for being a great tool in our school. I sincerely appreciate how Sycamore makes my work so much easier.
Melissa Brown
3 Dec 2019I love Sycamore!!! Thanks for the opportunity to have my own laminator. Ours is so old it would be awesome to have a new one.
Brandon
3 Dec 2019Pretty sure our laminator is at least 20 years old. 😅
Jennifer H
3 Dec 2019So excited for this opportunity. Thank you!
Marie Cartwright
3 Dec 2019Laminating extra math and language sheets/menu tasks that students can work on with dry erase markers when they are finished their work, and then pass on to other students when they are finished.
Kathy Kusiak
3 Dec 2019What did I ever do before there were laminators? These are little miracles that help create wonderful learning centers to enhance our educational programs, preserve student work, and help protect bulletin board displays. The list could go on forever. Sycamore, you are a great avenue to manage my students’ records, and you make it so easy for parents to partner with the school in their child’s education.
Jamie Saxon
3 Dec 2019Thank you, Sycamore, for the opportunity to enter to win a device that is used often to enhance my teaching! If I win, I would like to share this with the wonderful teachers at our school. All of my colleagues have been sharing a small and old laminator that is now ruining our copies. We could use a new one!
Christina Gray
4 Dec 2019Sycamore is such a convenient app. Our school is growing so fast. It would be great to have a laminator in our building.
Ed Swift
4 Dec 2019I’ve used Sycamore Education for many years and am very pleased not only with the platform but also the assistance given by their support team. Now, having an opportunity to win a laminator is very exciting news. I would very much like to have one for those reference tools I use so frequently.
Marissa Park
4 Dec 2019This is an awesome contest! I would love to have a laminator!
Janelle
4 Dec 2019This is so exciting! Our laminating machine is currently broken. I have many projects that could use this. Thanks Sycamore!
Lisa Talbott
4 Dec 2019I love Sycamore! A personal laminator for my classroom? WOW – I would use it to make personal graphing dry erase “boards” and reusable math games for my middle school students.
Jenny Bradhold
4 Dec 2019I would use a personal laminator to preserve students’ work and to provide sturdy materials for games and activities. Thank you Sycamore for taking time and effort to show appreciation for, not my job, but my vocation of teaching in a time where teachers are undervalued.
Sonja
4 Dec 2019Our school laminator went out a few years ago, so we’ve been having to run back and forth to Staples…this would be a true blessing
karen bunton
4 Dec 2019Thank you for your generosity! We appreciate all you do to make our jobs easier!
Martha Rowe
4 Dec 2019A laminator in my classroom would be used to preserve the precious memories that my students make, help protect the things I use year after year and create new and fun activities for learning. Since laminated papers can be used repeatedly with whiteboard markers, a classroom laminator would save me time at the school laminator, save the energy of heating up the big school laminator, save paper, and save me time in the school copier line. 🙂
Rachel Humphries
4 Dec 2019Thank you for a fun contest! I would love to win a laminator! I have tons of little things like name tags and papers that we use on a regular basis to laminate. I would also love to use it for crafts we do throughout the school year so parents will have them for years to come! Thank you Sycamore for being a great resource for teachers! This is only our third year using Sycamore and we love it!
Deven Swan
4 Dec 2019Our laminator is so fragile there is an approved staff member who is the only one allowed to use it. We need help.
Megen Boening
4 Dec 2019I started my career using Sycamore. Unfortunately, last February, our decades old laminator started a small fire and we’ve been without a laminator since! It would help our school a lot.
Brittany Smith
4 Dec 2019Thank you Sycamore for the opportunity to win a new laminator!
Ann Bolton
4 Dec 2019We have to pay to have our laminating done, so having a laminator would be a money saving tool for our teachers because it would be something I shared witb all the teachers at my small private school. It would be used to preserve resources like bulletin board visuals as well as class manipulative. So, it would help save the teachers money as well as their time.
Anna Daugherty
4 Dec 2019I would certainly use a laminator to create reusable materials for my math classroom – especially for students to practice graphing on coordinate grids! We waste so much paper each year, it would be great to have something I can use again and again.
Cindy
4 Dec 2019A laminator would so helpful for our school, even a personal one would really help all of our teachers! Thank you, Sycamore, for the opportunity to acquire one!
Sue
4 Dec 2019I would love the laminator! I am always looking for creative games and activities to add to my repertoire in kindergarten. Since so many little hands touch the materials, I always laminate them for durability. I am in a small private Christian school with a limited budget, so winning a laminator would be amazing!
Katherine Bohler
4 Dec 2019This is a great contest! Our school’s laminator is on its last leg and about to have an electrical meltdown! It would be great to have a new laminator!
Jennifer
4 Dec 2019I laminate so many posters, etc. to be used over and over. Another laminate would be awesome!
Yeshiva of Cleveland
4 Dec 2019Sycamore is the third database I have used, and will be the last!
Emily L.
4 Dec 2019Would love to win these for our school.
Kaci Monaghan
4 Dec 2019Our ancient laminator just died and there is no way we can replace it this year. This would be such a huge opportunity for our teachers! Thank you!!
Kim Bumgardaner
4 Dec 2019I would love to win these for our school! Thanks for the opportunity!
Brandi Hallemeier
4 Dec 2019As a special education teacher, I would use this laminator every day! Many of my laminating projects don’t get done in a timely way because it’s hard to get out of my classroom to do so. I would love to have a laminator in my classroom for easy and convenient access to complete these projects on my own time!
Debbie Weiss
4 Dec 2019Free laminator?! There really is a Santa! 🎅🏼
Darci Lindgren
4 Dec 2019Fun contest, and encourages teachers to use social networks like facebook and twitter to interact with each other and vendors.
Erin Patrick
4 Dec 2019Awww….the line at the laminator…the struggle is real! Would love to have a laminator to share with my two co-workers out in the wonderful world of portables that we teach in. Thank you, Sycamore!
Holly Nethery
4 Dec 2019Sycamore school is a very helpful tool for our school and its teachers! Thank you for the opportunity in this contest ~ things like this are so helpful in investing in children’s lives!
Susan Eichberger
4 Dec 2019We have used Sycamore for the past few years, I love the integration between Sycamore and Google.
James Braughler
4 Dec 2019We ‘have’ one but it is on its last leg, so a new laminator would be awesome!
Angela Reindl
4 Dec 2019We’ve been using Sycamore since I think 2008/09! It is a great system! It’s so helpful to have so much information in one location.
The laminator would be so helpful! We just moved into a new building and could use one in our (first ever!) teacher work room! I’d love to share it with our staff!
Betsy H.
4 Dec 2019I would add the laminator to our teacher workroom for all our staff to use. This would be such a help to so many of the teachers on our staff.
Barbara Harris
4 Dec 2019A new laminator would be wonderful. Ours is old, bulky and difficult to work with. Having a new laminator would allow our teachers Elementary, Middle and Preschool to work more efficiently. Thank you Sycamore for your generous offer!
Stephanie Koch
4 Dec 2019I use Sycamore for so many classroom applications! It makes grading so much easier and I love that it connect with google classroom. It would be wonderful to have another laminator for our school – ours is old and tired!
Joelle Buchanan
4 Dec 2019Our school would love a new laminator! I think we might have used this laminator when I was in school here :/
Deb Lange
4 Dec 2019Having a laminator would be a great help as I prepare games and games pieces for use through the years. My students like the write on/wipe off game cards to practice math facts. Personally, I’d love my own laminator on the 2nd floor of our building because I broke my leg this year and am having difficulty with stairs. I’d love to be able to use the machine on my own!
Dana Frerich
4 Dec 2019I would use the laminator for all of the above: bookmarks, centers, task cards, games, bulletin boards, etc… A new idea I wanted to try this year was to make the snow globe Christmas ornaments that we’ve all seen on Pinterest. They are so cute, but I think the very thin lamination film we have on our school laminator wouldn’t really make a solid “ornament” (I’m picturing curled up and flimsy) like I think the Scotch laminator and pouches would make.
Good luck to all! 🙂 Merry Not-Quite-Christmas!
Jordyn M.
4 Dec 2019ALL. THE. THINGS!!!
As a new teacher, I’m starting from scratch and would love to have a laminator. After putting loads of work into resources, it’s great to be able to give them longevity! Laminating is an investment that is well worth it!
Dana Frerich
4 Dec 2019I would love to try making the snow globe Christmas ornaments that I’ve seen on Pinterest!
Megan Biddlecome
4 Dec 2019This would be such a blessing to our little Christian School!
Megan Reinbold
4 Dec 2019I’ve been teaching for several years, but this is my first year in this position. After five years’ break, I’m finding I have to reprint and re-laminate all of my posters, anchor charts, and other classroom signs. A personal laminator would allow me to work more from home so I can work more efficiently!
Charlotte Fritsch
5 Dec 2019Char Fritsch
I teach first and second grade at a Lutheran School and would love a laminator. I laminate many things for use in the classroom as well as certain art work, Religion projects, and math activity sheets. The students like their artwork after it is saved forever in the lamination! What a great contest! Thanks
Justin Ruley
5 Dec 2019Our school has two small laminators. Unfortunately it takes forever to get something laminated because they are older machines and not every one has access. Having a lamination machine that is user friendly and easily accessible would be amazing!
Sara Elmore
5 Dec 2019A laminator would be great! As the librarian/tech person I use it for ID cards, Challenge cards for centers, password “badges”, and so much more!
Brittany Robinson
5 Dec 2019Sycamore is great! We sure could use a laminator!!! Ours smells like its going to burn down the school, so we don’t use it as we are afraid it will catch fire.
Caitlin Dembowski
5 Dec 2019Our laminator is on the fritz so this would be a lifesaver for our school!
Melinda McLaughlin
5 Dec 2019We love Sycamore! It has really helped up to improve communication with our families !
Tina Saraceni
5 Dec 2019As an early childhood educator, there is so many things you can do with a laminator to help cut down classroom costs for the teachers. I have so many projects and yearly curriculum visuals that require laminating. We are a small non-profit christian school with not much reserves for things. Large laminator either takes forever to heat, not working well, or in use most times.
Patricia Haslam
5 Dec 2019Our school uses Sycamore. It is a very easy, user-friendly school management system. My school could really use a laminator!! I hope we win!!
Michelle Mueller
5 Dec 2019My own personal laminator would provide me with a tool to protect my coding block flashcards and create some ELA stations for my primary grade levels. Anything used in a primary classroom needs to be protected if you want more than one use out of it. I hope to win!
Barbara Childers
6 Dec 2019A Scotch Laminator would be a great addition to our school that serves children with learning disabilities. It would be great to have another resource that would help us create laminated visual for math and other subjects.
Kris
6 Dec 2019I could use a laminator for coding cards for my computer science courses!
Sommer Moore
6 Dec 2019Thanks Sycamore for giving back! Good luck to all!
Kelly Schimmoller
6 Dec 2019It would be a blessing to have a laminator in my classroom, which is the library. We are constantly running to the office to laminate book covers and signs and posters for kids in our whole school (pre-k thru 8). We only own one laminator for the whole school and it is located in the back of the main office. I would, of course, share with my colleagues to help make their lives easier as having 2 laminators would be so wonderful! Thank you for helping connect our school and for thinking of teachers!!
Kimberly Julian
6 Dec 2019I would love a laminator to help reuse manipulative that I use every year… like today I used paper right and obtuse triangles to create rectangles and parallelograms that they know how to calculate the area of
Chris
6 Dec 2019I would use it for improving the durability of reusable classroom handouts. For instance, I make periodic table handouts with specific reference material for my chemistry students to use on tests or quizzes, but they collect so many rips and pencil marks I end up having to replace them yearly (if not sooner).
MO
6 Dec 2019Hoping to get another laminator for my school!
Molly
7 Dec 2019I use our laminator to laminate name tags, flash cards, work mats, bulletin boards, and for dry erase worksheets. It would be great to have one of my own so I could prep these whenever I needed instead of having to coordinate using it!
Mary Skyvalidas
7 Dec 2019A personal laminator will save precious time in making learning tools for my students. I like to create teaching resources and laminating them lets me use them time and time again. I will be able to laminate task cards, flash cards, game pieces, directions, and many other resources. Thanks Sycamore for being so generous !
Suzanne Barnett
8 Dec 2019We’d love a new laminator!!
Mary Jo Bird
8 Dec 2019Our laminator is so problematic to say the least. At the beginning of this school year, my plan was to laminate all of my 4th/5th name tags so they’d last longer…I have 56 students from three different classes rotate through daily and these name tags take a beating…In August our laminator had a mind of it’s own and after three attempts to laminate my name tags, I just gave up and put them on my desks without being laminated…what a mistake. Here it is not even Christmas and I have to replace nearly all of them with new name tags because they’ve torn, etc…I ‘d absolutely love a new laminator for our school!
Jennifer L Bailey
9 Dec 2019I would be thrilled to win this for my school!
Melissa
9 Dec 2019How amazing would this be!!!! Sycamore is always on TOP of things!!! Love using Sycamore for all types of things and parents do too!! So easy to navigate and to learn. Winning a laminator would be a dream come true. We are a private Christian school and funds are limited, if there is even funds to consider….we do not own a laminator and how wonderful would it be to win and bless our small school!!! Thank you for the opportunity. So many creative ways to use a laminator!!
Amy Hess
10 Dec 2019I am still getting adjusted to a new grade level and have started knowing what I use every year, a laminator would make it so much easier to preserve.
Laura Castro
10 Dec 2019I make lots of manipulatives for my Spanish classes, this laminator would be a huge gift!
Teresa Chavez
10 Dec 2019It would be an awesome gift. I would totally share with all. What a great exciting opportunity to win a personal laminator. As private school educators we do have to stretch everything and share with each other. I would use it to create classroom tools such as flash cards and multiplication tables, etc. I would use it to preserve students artwork projects in Art. I could really use it for this next semester in Science. I can use it to make banners and displays for our upcoming semester where we will be exploring other countries around the world project. There are hundreds and hundreds of uses, we could use it here at Sycamore!!
Teresa Chavez
10 Dec 2019Cook Inlet Academy being part of Sycamore!! We need the laminator!! Thanks! What a great idea!
Ronda Myers
12 Dec 2019I have some activities that I do regularly for review or to introduce a unit. One of my favorites includes a posterboard of boxes with a letter of the alphabet in each box. Students work together to come up with ideas pertaining to the overall concept that begin with the different letters. Currently, they use post-its for each box, but if it were laminated they could just use dry-erase markers and the posterboard could be reused!
Gigi Tillett
13 Dec 2019Teaching STEAM and programming as well as having campus organization duties, I have a lot of needs for a laminator. We are already on our second one this year!
Melanie Pierce
14 Dec 2019Personal whiteboards with templates printed on them for math would be an awesome way to use this laminator! I’d love to be entered in this contest. Thanks, Sycamore!
Kim Jernigan
15 Dec 2019Our school is a small hybrid school and we have NO LAMINATOR on site. Instead, we have to go to the local copy shop to get these things done. I would actually donate this to our school for ALL our teachers to use. What a gift this would be!
Janet Peter
15 Dec 2019I would love to make individual whiteboards for my students!
Jill Dougherty
15 Dec 2019Oh my goodness! Our school has not had a functioning laminator since last SPRING!! The old one broke, huge delay in the ordering of a new one with miscommunication and back orders only to have the new one arrive damaged! Still no laminator! I would LOVE to be able to laminate anything and everything without going to the teacher store!
Mary Medley
16 Dec 2019We have one laminator for a school that has PreK – 8th grade. No one is exactly sure how old it is, just that’s its an archaic dinosaur. It is difficult to use – changing rolls is beyond troublesome; heating up takes forever, etc. We desperately need a new laminator!
Jesse Wicks
16 Dec 2019We would use the laminator for decorations, dry erase boards, posterboards, and more! I’m not sure you can be a teacher and not want everything laminated 🙂
Hilary Barfield
16 Dec 2019This is awesome! Good luck to everyone!!