Winner of Day 5 & Teacher Product Tuesday - {Dry Erase Pockets}

First of all, I know what y'all are waiting for. I hate waiting to find out, too, so here it is...

Congrats, Emily! She's got loads of goodies coming her way and boy... am I jealous of that Target gift card! Dollar Spot all the way ;) Check back tomorrow for the last day's winner! Cannot wait to see who it is.

Do you have those times when you dread making copies of a product you've printed out or you handed out your key on accident and it's written all over?? Yep.. I've been there.

SO, MyBinding.com contacted me a while back (like... a BIG TIME while back) and asked if I'd be interested in reviewing their C-Line 9x12 Dry Erase Pockets, which can be found here.

{SOURCE}

I decided to go ahead and give them a whirl.

I printed out a page from my soon-to-be-listed NEW pack Math Jokes, which is an addition and subtraction pack that has a total of 30 practice pages, 10 all addition, 10 all subtraction, and 10 mixed. Each page has 18 different problems (that go from sums and differences of 1 to 100) and then students have to figure out the riddle at the bottom of the page using the codes to the right of the page.

Anyways, I put it in the dry erase pocket and got to work.

Slide your page in. The obviously nice thing about these pockets is that they can be used horizontally or vertically.

Then, I went ahead and completed one of the addition pages. I wrote directly on the pocket with a dry erase marker with ease. It glided right over the material as though it were a dry erase board - only it was more personal! 

Then, I wanted to erase. Sometime when you have a dry erase board or pocket, erasing is a PAIN IN THE BUTT. I mean a pain... it leaves residue behind, it doesn't wipe off easily, you can still see an outline of the pen... NOPE. Not with these. 

With one swipe of a tissue, it came off SO cleanly, you wouldn't even know I wrote on the pocket.

And, because I wrote on the pocket and not the paper, I can reuse this SAME piece of paper from year to year!! Saves me not only ink from having to reprint BUT it also saves me some time of having to reprint, too!

Some ideas for how to use these in the class are...

Use in centers - have kiddos place the writing for the day or the math problems for the day in the pocket. You can check it over (if you so choose) and then wipe it away for the next kiddo to use!

Use when testing reading - you can slide one in a pocket for your kiddos and one for you, and your kiddos can underline or circle words they may not understand. This gives you, as the teacher, an idea of what students may need reviews on and what they could improve.

As for at home... the possibilities are endless, too!

Lists - put a piece of blank paper in the packs and use it as a list. Grocery list. Menu planner. To-do list. Anything!

Drawing - have your kiddos go to town with dry erase markers! Gives them a place to draw, draw, draw and it'll stay off the walls ;)

The other thing I love about these is that they can be stored in a simple place as they're all very thin. You can pull them out and have kiddos use them at their desks instead of trying to fit everyone up at the board. This way, everyone gets to participate, including that child that is too nervous to go to the board!

So, how would YOU use these in your classroom or your home? Let me know in the comments. I'd love to hear lots of your ideas - I know y'all have some! :)

**All opinions expressed on this product are of my own. MyBinding.com supplied me with free product to review, but opinions are 100% my own.**

Wait, TWO Giveaways?!

Okay, I know some of you have been patiently waiting for this post to come about.. well, here it is!

I was contacted by MyBinding.com to review some sort of awesome tool. I chose to review the Book Binding Machine since I already have a great laminator and a paper cutter. I also have been interested in a machine to make books for my future students rather than just putting a paper clip on the top or stapling the edges and being faced with crumbled papers. SO, I asked to review the binding machine!

This huge box showed up on a rainy day. I actually missed it walking inside the house because it was off to the side... but I was expecting something so I went back outside to check for it. Low and behold, there it was!

I cut open the box and was faced with this. WHAT?! Did I really just get my own binding machine to make books, calendars, etc.?! AND the box came with tons and tons and TONS of supplies like binding combs, clear covers, AND embossed paper? Yes, yes, I did.

So, I decided to break it out and play with it some! It's a pretty lightweight machine that's REALLY simple to use once you get the hang of it. It being my first time using it, I actually followed the directions. But, now that I know what to do, it's as easy as pie! The BIG gray handle is the hole puncher (in a sort of way). There's a little gray sliding tool on the top there to the right, that's the lock. So, the machine locks and unlocks for safety. Definitely a good idea, in my opinion, so that things don't get punched that you'd prefer not to get punched!

You unlock the machine and the gray handle pops up to allow for you to insert sheets of paper to be punched. I used my Student Word Wall Book as a sample for this project to see how it works. The only thing I didn't like about this part is that I could only fit 8 pages in at a time... kind of disappointing BUT it works great nonetheless! Since my document had a total of 17 pages, I just had to punch through twice. When you're punching through, it sounds like the machine is breaking BUT do not worry. This is good! The handle also does not pop back up by itself.. you have to pull it. You should have seen me trying to figure out how to get the handle back up... what a concept to just pull back up!

Once you've got your holes in, now it's time to set up your comb. The comb confused me at first, too (you'd think I had not experienced anything in life before with me trying to figure out this machine?!). Anyways, you set the comb up so that the teeth are closer to you than the machine (see picture below). You have to physically push the two levers on the side of the machine to spread the comb open (bottom picture), but it's much MUCH easier than sitting there trying to open each tooth to separate it from the continuous spine (does that make sense?). I absolutely love the ease of this step, as it only took me about 30 seconds to do.

Then, place your product on the combs so that each tooth has gone through each sheet of paper. This step has to be possibly the easiest, yet most frustrating, step. I have an issue with things having to go on at the SAME time, so if some of the pages missed some of the teeth, I made myself start all over again. BUT this step is the easiest, so don't over think it like I did!

AND voilà! There you have it. You've made a book in as short as 1 minute. Once you've got things figured out, you'll whip out your books in no time. These are also going to be very helpful when you need to make books for your students to take home for presents, to give to your parents as a thank you gift, and so forth. There are MANY different things you could use this binding machine for, and guess what?

MyBinding.com is giving one of you, my readers, a chance to win your own!

Please enter the Rafflecopter below to have a chance at winning your own Binding Machine with supplies, FREE! Isn't MyBinding.com so generous to be doing this?!

You must do all the required entries. They WILL be verified. If you do NOT complete something that is required, and your name is drawn at the end, you will be disqualified. HONOR SYSTEM, Y'ALL!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

ALSO: At the same time, I'm hosting another giveaway for hitting 300 AND 400 followers! Please enter the giveaway below for a gift card from me for $30.00. The gift card will be of YOUR choice, all for hitting 400 followers on this little blog of mine

Examples could be Starbucks, Target, TPT, TN, Etsy, Applebees, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, whatever you'd like (that I am able to either buy online OR go to the place and buy).

RULES ARE SAME AS ABOVE. Must complete all required entries. Entries will be verified. HONOR SYSTEM, Y'ALL.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

GOOD LUCK!

*All opinions expressed on this post are of my own. MyBinding.com supplied me with free products, but opinions are 100% my own.*

PS. Don't forget about the Ohio Blogger Meet Up! It's happening on Sunday, October 7th, 2012! We'd love to have as many of you that would like to join! Goody bags, good conversation, and new friends!

Have a good night, y'all!