I was very excited to learn that I hit a major milestone on Teachers Pay Teachers. It has been such a wonderful community and opportunity for me for the past 3 years, and I am so incredibly grateful. I made this post a year ago about why I LOVE Teachers Pay Teachers! “It has been a true blessing for me and for my teaching practice. I have learned so much over the past year by meeting and collaborating with other teachers, discussing important educational topics on the forums, and learning how to create engaging and targeted lessons. I always felt that my lesson plans were solid – targeted, authentic, scaffolded, and meaningful – but I never thought to take it the extra step to make it even more engaging.”
It is a checklist of the short but essential tasks that students must complete to revise, edit, and publish their work. The backside of the checklist includes mini-lessons or reminders of each of the editing requirements for quick reference. Perfect for encouraging accountability and independence!
At the end of the checklist, students must sign their name, attesting that they have actually attended to all the items on the checklist.
To all of my followers, collaborators, and fellow educators, thank you for your support, encouragement, and for celebrating this major milestone with me! Have a wonderful week!
Exciting news, people! To celebrate reaching 3 Million Registered Teachers, Teachers Pay Teachers is throwing a rare site-wide sale! This means everything on the site will be up to 28% off! TPT gives all customers 10% off with promo code TPT3, plus many sellers (including yours truly) will knock of another 20%. For you math whizzes, that’s 28% total. A HUGE deal!
The sale will be this Thursday and Friday, February 27th and 28th. It’s a great idea to figure out what you’d like now and add it to your wish list or cart. I know I have my eye on a ton of lessons and clip art. And remember, you can deduct your purchases on your taxes!
My top selling item, The Argumentative Writing Instruction Workbook, will be a real bargain during this sale. The price for the digital download will drop from $15 to only $12! It is also available in hard copy for $25, and that will drop to $20 during the sale.
Hellooooooo, Winter Break! Oh how much I’ve looked forward to seeing you! Here are the highlights from week 16:
1. Chair Bungees for Restless Students: I discovered a really great, inexpensive, QUIET, unobtrusive fidget tool for the classroom – chair bungees. There’s not much to it, you just wrap a bungee cord or some kind of sturdy, elastic material around 2 chair legs. This gives students something to lightly bounce their legs against during class. Hopefully, this won’t disturb their neighbors or make any noise, but will provide sensory feedback for the student and a mindless outlet for fidgety behavior. I like that it occupies their legs instead of their hands, which we need for work!
2. Ready for January! I am all set to come back for break, which is a great feeling. I don’t have any correcting or lesson planning to do over my winter break, which means I can focus my energy on my family and on my dissertation. My calendar and assignment board are all set!
3. Phonics Spelling App – I found a great new app for our students struggling with phoneme-grapheme mapping, sight words, and basic foundational skills. Of course this is only one component of our multi-faceted reading intervention program for students who are reading 2 or more levels below grade level. The Simplex Phonics Spelling App costs $5, so I am working on locating the funds to purchase this app for our small-but-growing list of identified students. My hope is that I can introduce them to the app at school, but they will practice the app at home and with their parents. I installed and interacted with the app for a while, and I liked that it offered lots of support and that it didn’t seem too ‘babyish’ for our 6th through 8th graders. Here’s hoping this is a winner for our students!
4. Spirit Week! Leading up to winter break, we have had a ‘Spirit’ or ‘Dress-up’ day each day this week. Monday = Pajama Day / Tuesday = Twin Day / Wednesday = Blue Day to honor our custodian with cancer / Thursday = Nerd Day / Friday = Red Day. I love dressing up with a theme, so of course I was on Cloud 9 all week!
5. Like a Rock Star: I made the front page of TpT! I was so excited to see this!
So how was your week? I hope you are already (or thinking about) enjoying your Winter Break!!! See you in January 😉
This October marks my one-year anniversary with Teachers Pay Teachers, a great website in which I can meet other committed, passionate teachers like myself, find new ideas for lesson plans, and share/sell my own lesson plans and materials. I have loved being a part of that community, and it has definitely made me a better teacher.
In celebration of my one-year anniversary, I am having a sale and a giveaway! Everything will be 15% off this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Now is a great time to stock up on those items on your wish list. Can I recommend a few great items? These are my top sellers:
