There are a few supplies I constantly get questions about. For good reason, I consider them essentials. They make preparing materials, organizing resources, and utilizing activities easier and more streamlined. Here are my favs:
Laminator
A personal laminator is a must. You can bring it home on weekends and relax on a Saturday night with a glass of wine and a stack of adapted books to prep. That’s everyone idea of a rocking Saturday, right?! I do highly recommend investing in your own laminator. Large industrial laminators don’t always have thicker laminating options, break often, and usually have a line. We have a lot of laminating to do sometimes and having the ability to throw a page in here or there is a huge time saver!
I have this Swingline Laminator. I use Menu Size Laminating pages for file folder activities and Letter Size Laminating pages for everything else. I prefer to use 5 mil for schedule pieces and 3 mil for pages and activities.
Coil Binding Machine
Once you start with coil binding, you’ll never go back. It’s so much sturdier than other plastic binding types and there are so many uses. I love these for adapted books. They also work great for creating workbooks or student specific activities. I also think these are amazing for binding the Leveled Daily Curriculum into workbooks!
I have this Coil Binding Machine and get 3/4 inch binding coils.
Velcro Dots
My most liked and comment on pictures on social media are pictures of velcro dots. What is it about velcro dots that makes people so dang happy?! Oh yea – it’s because everyone hates cutting velcro. The sticky scissors, the extra time. No, no, no. Velcro dots are worth the extra money because you can get a lot more materials prepped much more quickly. My all time favorite velcro comes from Feiner Supply. You buy the hard and soft separate (which is great because I usually use much more hard velcro). I usually get 3/4 inch!
Photo Storage Container
I always get tons of questions on this item! I recently have been using this photo storage container system for my ABLLS Task Cards but there are so many options! These are great for task boxes, schedule pictures, supplies, mini sensory bins, and more. I got this Iris Photo Storage Container in XL from Amazon but they also have them at Michaels, Joannes, and sometimes Costco!
Binder Rings
Binder rings are my quick and easy go-to solution for all types of resource organization. I love binder rings to turn task cards into a complete activity, putting writing or language prompts on, or for storing my click counters on. The two inch binding clips are cheap and have so many uses!
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11 Responses
Good morning Sasha, just wondering what age groups you utilize your fluency table with? I am in a new classroom this year which serves kiddos k-6 and most are non-verbal and low to moderate functioning. I’m thinking about purchasing and setting up a fluency table but need to know if you think it would work for my kiddos.
This was such an essential post, thanks!
I have setup fluency in prek – high school. For younger kids I would work on fine motor fluency, vocal imitation, imitation, and basic receptive language skills!
Thanks a lot this will serve as a great help to assemble this resource material.
Great to hear this will be helpful! Thanks for reading 🙂
Hello, any recommendations on a good printer. Thank you in advance
I have an HP Envy!
Hi Sasha,
How do you stick your title pages to your ABLLS storage containers? I don’t know what’s best to make a laminated page stick to plastic!
clear packing tape!
What do you use to fasten the labels onto the photo storage containers? Tape? I assume those labels are laminated paper so I wondered how they would stick to the plastic storage containers.
Thanks!
clear packing tape!