Random Five for Friday thoughts... good-bye summer, garden, butterflies, laminating film, and a Messy Classroom!

Hello Friends,

Yay! Time for Five for Friday! Here I go....

1. We start back to school in 10 days..... ten....... days........ So hard to let go of summer.... I had such a wonderful one! We took no BIG vacations; instead we drove to Eastern Michigan and Southern Wisconsin enjoying the lakes and some well needed family time!

2. I had the pleasure of working with a couple of my former students (and their little sister) today. They came over to the garden and helped me paint some signs and make a scarecrow. Such a fun morning!

3. I was able to capture this pretty picture of a Monarch butterfly in my crab apple tree today. I THINK it is a male because of the lower black spots on his wings. Females do not have these black spots.

4. This year I invested in MATTE laminating pouches. They are SUPER expensive! Almost $35 for 100 sheets. BUT, I bit the bullet and purchased them because I really wanted my student to be able to see the alphabet posters in my classroom this year without a glare. They worked great! Here is a (not so good) picture of the posters that were laminated with matte pouches....

Here is another (not so good) photo of posters that I laminated with the shiny (more affordable) pouches.

You sure can see the glare on the shiny sheets!

These are the matte laminating pouches that I purchased. As I wrote, they are expensive! They are very nice and I do not feel like my money was wasted BUT I will only be using the pouches for things that I want to keep for a really long time!