How much time do you spend queuing at the photocopier on a Monday morning?

How much time do you spend annoyed at the photocopier/printer because it isn’t working?

How much time do you spend laminating paper per week?

The answer is too much!

I know for a fact that as teachers YES we need to print certain activities and laminate certain key display/game cards, but the truth is, there are many tips and tricks out there that will:

1. Reduce your paper/ plastic usage.
2. Save you TIME! (that word we never seem to have enough of).
3. Help you to have a more sustainable classroom.

In this post, I’ll include some of the tips you kindly shared with me on Instagram that save you time but also reduce your paper/plastic use.

*Any links to Amazon are affiliate links. See more information on this in my Disclosure Policy.

Use Dry Erase Pockets to enable activities to be REUSED

These dry erase pockets are IDEAL for reducing your printing quantity. As can be seen in the picture, children can write on the pocket using a dry erase marker. Upon competition of the activity, they can erase it and pass it to the next group to be used. This would work perfectly during station teaching, as instead of printing 30 copies, you may only need to print 5 or 6 (depending on how many children are in a group).

I’d never expect anyone to spend their hard earned cash on products for the classroom, but if you are lucky enough to have a classroom budget or access to a school credit card, this product could be a classroom investment for the long run and make your classroom more sustainable.

Only laminate resources that WILL BE reused again and again

Laminating resources is so time consuming, it pains me! This year, I’ve made a serious effort in reducing the amount I laminate in my classroom. There was a time where I used to laminate everything and have all these “perfect” looking resources prepared for lessons. Did the children benefit more from them- NO. So I stopped. Now the only things I laminate are:

1. Display headings- these will be used each year until they’re illegible.
2. Games- any games that will be used throughout the year will be laminated to keep them protected.

If you’d like your key words etc more sturdy for display purposes, consider printing them on card or backing them on to hard cardboard! This keeps them strong and protected, without needing to laminate them! See the post below for where I found the idea. The Sustainable Classroom!

This one won’t actually save you much time, as you will still need to back it on to cardboard, but you will be reducing your plastic usage- fact.

Practice what you preach

As a teacher, we are setting an example for our pupils. If we use a lot of single use plastic, tin foil, sandwich bags etc, the children will of course follow suit.

Education through Creation made some great suggestions that I just had to share.

Always bring your own coffee cup, reusable cups for children who forget their drink, never throw out scraps of paper/card which can be use for free drawing or art. Ask the children to bring in egg/yoghurt cartons for Art lessons. Don’t put the lights on unnecessarily.

Another follower got in touch and suggested:

Use rewards like homework off or sit on a cushion instead of trinkets in the prize box.

What I like about that suggestion is that it saves you time and money buying items for the prize box. I’ve seen Niamh from Irish Primary Teacher use other suggestions similar to this like:

• Choose the PE warm-up.
• Sit beside a friend.
• Change your Dojo monster.
• Choose a job.

See more on this post here.

Print ONLY resources that are an absolute must.

There’s no secret/misconception about the fact that we have to print activities in the classroom. But where you can, ask yourself these questions:

• Can the children share this print-out 1 between 2?
• Do they all need a copy of this activity or can some of them take it down from it projected on to the board?
• Is there a way to do the activity practically?
• Could some of them research the topic on laptops/iPads instead?

I’m no saint, I don’t do these things near enough. But if/when you have the time to make one of these changes, it’s still a reduction, it’s still a change. A change for the better that will help you to be more mindful and sustainable.

Use biodegradable bin bags in your classroom

Clódagh from The Home Ec Hub recommended this nifty hack and pointed out that they can be purchased from Aldi and Lidl-win! There will always be rubbish in the classroom, no matter how hard we try. However, by using biodegradable bin bags, we can ensure that that is one less plastic in our landfills. Every reduction, no matter how small, is still a reduction in plastic.

I had a quick search on Amazon to see what other biodegradable items were on sale to be used in the classroom and stumbled upon these- I use most, if not all of these (the plastic version) during Art lessons. I know what I need to spend my classroom budget on next year!

 See my entire list for other biodegradable products that may be of use to you in your classroom!

This is not aimed to be a preachy post, it’s just to group together some ideas to help you to make more sustainable choices where possible. If interested in learning more about how to be more sustainable in the classroom, see my post about a course I did with Fluirse: Summer Courses with Fluirse

If you have any more suggestions, please comment below so I can add them in.