If you are a special education teacher chances are you are fairly familiar with velcro. Whether you are just starting out or a veteran teacher, I’m sharing all of my velcro tips and tricks in this blog post!
((This blog post contains affiliate links for your convenience. You don’t pay any more by clicking my link (and I actually find the best prices for you!) but I make a small commission off of sales. This helps me to test out more materials and bring you more quality content. Thanks for supporting my little blog!))
I get asked about velcro… alllllll the time. Velcro and Lamination are probably the number one questions in my inbox, so I’m finally sharing my favorite kinds and all my tips. I’ll start with the most important and most frequently asked question first… so you don’t have to scroll!
WHERE DO YOU BUY VELCRO?
I get my velcro in bulk on Feinersupply.com. I buy in bulk because I am constantly creating my own resources. If this is something you do often, I HIGHLY recommend buying bulk… because the savings are huge and you get more for the money. When you buy bulk you can also buy hook (hard) and loop (soft) separately. If I’m in a pinch (feiner supply takes about a week to come in) or if you don’t need a ton, I suggest this brand on amazon.
HOOK AND LOOP? HUH?
If you’re new to the velcro world… you need to know that hook is the hard velcro and loop is the soft velcro! We tend to use more hook than loop because hook can attach to many different surfaces not just velcro. This is why I like buying bulk, cause you can buy the two separately… aka more hook!
HARD ON THE CARD OR ON THE SURFACE?
This seems to be a highly debated question in teacher facebook groups… but I’m here to tell you that HARD on the CARD is the ONLY WAY. Why? Because I want my pieces to stick to all surfaces… not just velcro. When I put hard on the card it can attach to carpet or my favorite… veltex!
WHAT ELSE CAN HOOK ATTACH TO?
Hook velcro will attach to loop velcro, carpet, and veltex fabric (MY FAVORITE!)
DOTS OR STRIPS?
I buy both… for different reasons. Strips are used on my schedule boards, and dots are used on my schedule pieces. I definitely use dots more often because of the convenience of not having to cut them.
What color velcro do I choose?
I am a huge advocate for black velcro. A few years ago “clear” or “white” velcro was all the rage. Yes, it looks best on our resources we spent a long time prepping and covers less of a piece… but think about our students. Some of our students may have visual impairments and NEED the visual discrepancy between the paper and the velcro in order to attach the piece to the page… and because of that I prefer black. You can find black velcro strips here.
HOW DO YOU CUT VELCRO?
With scissors! But I know what you mean… cutting velcro may cause damage to your scissors… I always have used these super sharp scissors and I write velcro on them so they are only used for velcro! If you do run into a sticky scissors problem… goo be gone works every time! But my biggest tip…. don’t cut your velcro unless you are making schedule boards… just buy the dots- it’s worth it!
DO YOU CUT BEFORE OR AFTER ADDING VELCRO?
It is most definitely quicker to flip over a full sheet and attach velcro to the squares before you cut!
HOW DO I MAKE A VELCRO BOARD?
This is where veltex comes in! Using veltex fabric (you can find at joanns fabric store, other fabric stores, or online here) you can make a board for your students to do work with! Follow the tutorial in this blog post.
HOW DO I USE A VELCRO BOARD?
Velcro boards are used to display the “pieces” of the students task box in a direct way… it keeps the pieces from falling off the desk, practices the fine motor of pulling the pieces off, and displays them in an upright way which is important for a lot of our learners. You can see a tutorial about how make this in this blog post.
PLEASE LINK ME TO YOUR FAVORITES!
Remember, I highly suggest buying bulk from Feiner Supply Company, I don’t have a special link for that. But I do have some highly affordable favorites on amazon that I will link below, these will be affiliates, so thanks for clicking my links!
I hope this information was helpful for you! You can find out more of my favorites and all about lamination in this blog post if you are interested in that too!
For more of my sped prep favorites, visit my amazon store!
((This blog post contains affiliate links for your convenience. You don’t pay any more by clicking my link (and I actually find the best prices for you!) but I make a small commission off of sales. This helps me to test out more materials and bring you more quality content. Thanks for supporting my little blog!))