One thousand times two!

It's been a full week since I've posted and this might be the world's longest post!  I've been spending so much time at work lately.  I feel like it's just a few things I need to get done, and then I'll get all caught up, and will be able to keep up.  Unfortunately, I haven't gotten caught up to know!  Good news, though!  Our building's construction has been on hold since mid-August.  We added about 100 new students and didn't really have room for all of them.  There have been 6 people operating out of our room and while my desk is in that room, I've been meeting with students in a closet.  Yes, a closet.  It's where we charge our laptop carts.  We've made it work and I honestly don't mind it too much other than sitting on the floor.  Well, we finally received our long awaited permit.  They're finishing pieces daily.  One person gets to move into her room this weekend.  Things are coming together nicely!

I made some achievements this week while I was busy working!  On Tuesday, I passed 1,000 Followers in my TpT store.  On Wednesday, I passed 1,000 Followers on my blog.  Shnikey!  When I started this blog in February I was so excited to have 3 followers the first weekend.  I can't believe there are 1,000 people that want to hear what I say and see what I do.  Truly, I'm in awe.  I know I just finished my 700 follower giveaway but I put together a GIGANTIC giveaway to celebrate reaching 1,000.  Keep reading :)

I spent all of my rainy, gloomy, fall Saturday at school working.  I got a lot done!  First thing I did was get my new laminator set up!  MyBinding.com sent me this awesome little laminator to try out and I'm in love!  I've never had my own before and I'm pretty sure it's going to change my life.  It's the Papermonster 12" Laminator, though they do have a smaller 9" one.

It comes with a few different stickers so that you can personalize it.

 The cord stores inside itself!  I hate dealing with cords and keeping things neat is so hard when they are loosely wrapped around.  This keeps it neatly organized.

 I had some 12" sleeves and so I was able to laminate construction paper!  I love not having to worry about it fitting only a piece of paper.  I used it to laminate my Nike Set poster from The Reading Olympians program.  I'm starting the roots program with my 5-7 graders to hopefully help their spelling, decoding, and comprehension.

 I also used it to laminate word cards from my H-owl-oween Tricks game.  The game has word cards that include short vowels, long vowels including magic e, blends, and vowel digraphs.  You can choose which cards you'd like to use.  I am going to play the game with my third graders using words from every set.  They are struggling with identifying when a word is short or long and I'm hoping this fun review will help.

Do you see how small it is?  It fits on the corner of a desk and is so lightweight.  It seriously could be transported back and forth, but I wouldn't do that because I'd be guaranteed to crumple my pouches.

The machine grabs the pages and pulls them through on their own and then out the back.  When it's done, it stops and is ready for you to grab it out.  It also doesn't leave that gross plastic-y smell in the air as it's working, which is so nice when you laminate a bajillion pages!

You can check out my H-owl-oween Tricks & Treats unit, including adorable H-owl-oween bunting (banner) and certificates by clicking the picture below and heading to my TpT store.  And, you can keep reading and win your own!

On my way home I stopped at Wal-Mart and picked up this jack-o-lantern bucket for only a dollar!  Score!  It'll be the perfect thing to put the cards for my game in to have students draw from!

I also used it to laminate the Oh-So-Scary Sentences center from Queen of the First Grade Jungle.  I told you I was at work all day long!  Her adorable unit is in her TpT store here.  You can also win it below.  Keep reading...

I wasn't kidding when I said that this laminator changed my life.  There's so many things I want to create now.  It's also convincing me that I need to buy myself my own laser color printer at home so that I'm not using up all the ink at school.  Let's face it, you don't want to laminate something that's black and white.  You want it cute!  Do you want to win one of the laminator's for yourself?  Of course you do!  Just enter below!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

The laminator isn't the only thing I'm giving away, though!  I asked some bloggers to help me celebrate the occasion by donating their favorite seasonal items!  I got more responses than I ever could have dreamed of so I put them together into smaller packages.  That way, you have more opportunities to win!

The first giveaway is the biggest!  You can win

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To enter, all you need to do is click the blog buttons to head to the blogs and follow each person, then come back and enter using the Rafflecopter.
a Rafflecopter giveaway


For the second giveaway you can win....


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Click the blog buttons to follow all of these blogs, and then enter below!
a Rafflecopter giveaway


For the third giveaway you can win.....



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Click on the blog buttons to follow all of our blogs and then enter via Rafflecopter!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

The fourth giveaway has these awesome products... from

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Just click the blog buttons to follow each of our blogs and then come enter using the Rafflecopter!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

The fifth {phew!} giveaway has....

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To enter, you need to click all the blog buttons and follow the blogs and then enter via the Rafflecopter here:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

The LAST giveaway includes these great items...

from ME! :)

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Click on the blog buttons to follow all the blogs and then come enter!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope you enjoy these giveaways and I hope you're a winner.  Thank you for being a follower!  And if you made it alllllll the way down here, you deserve a trophy.  Or some chocolate.  Or some wine.  Or some wine and some chocolate.  You choose :)