Keep Your Classroom Material Colorful Without a Color Printer + FREEBIE

What happens when your funds for color printing are gone? What happens if the only color printer you have access to breaks? Students would get tired of seeing centers filled with white paper pieces, black and white game boards, black and white posters on the wall. In this post I will share with you one way to bring the color back to your classroom.

Print your blackline material onto colored paper or cardstock and VOILA!! The color is back! Things for me are somewhat different now because I run my own school, but in the past I would run out of ways to have color copies done.  Color has always been the first thing to grab my attention and help keep me engaged and many children are the same way.  I would cringe when I would look around and see that all of my printed material for centers as well as signs and posters were boring black and white.  The day I walked into my friend's classroom and found her printing blackline material onto colored cardstock I  was AMAZED (why didn't I think of that).  From that day on it is very seldom that you walk into my room to find black and white printed material except for the basics like tests, handouts, recording sheets, etc... (although I do throw in a test here and there on colored paper and my students get excited for some reason,  I guess it seems special).  I have learned to not only use this when's funds are low but I also use it throughout the year when I come across a nice center or activity set that includes blackline copies.  (This helps to stretch my funds a little longer)  Here is one example of a poster I have hanging in my classroom currently:

If you have ever downloaded one of my products from my TpT store, you will notice that every time it is possible, I include blacklines of my material.  I do this to help everyone stretch a dollar.  Below is another way that I saved some money.  I found that when students were in our writing center, they were having trouble seeing our alphabet.  To solve this problem, I simply created an Alphabet Triangle Banner as a blackline printable and printed it on neon green paper then posted it (the squares below the banner are also included.  These have the uppercase letters.  I don't post the uppercase until we have covered that letter/sound in class) Okay enough about me and speaking of stretching a dollar... 

There's nothing like a FREEBIE to stretch a dollar. If you would like to test out the tip I shared in this post, click on the picture below and head over to my TpT store and download your free copy of my Alphabet Triangle Banner Set.  If you have anything to share on this topic or questions to ask, please feel free to comment below.

Click on the picture for your FREEBIE

-MO