Teacher’s Brain

New Years TEACHER Giveaway

Just in time to start the new year off right…. A TEACHER TpT Gift Card GIVEAWAY!

Just click the links, follow a teacher store, write the follow number in the area provided and click enter. The more stores you follow, the better your chance are to win. Good LUCK! I hope YOU get to enjoy a Teachers Pay Teachers Shopping Spree! Happy New Year!

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Say Yes To The Live, Joy, Lust For Life, Frohsinn

Teaching Thanksgiving to Kindergarten

Pilgrims and Thanksgiving

I love teaching in November!  I know that I have so much to be thankful for this time of year!  Young students should learn about Thanksgiving by focusing on being thankful, spending time with family, the First Thanksgiving, and the Mayflower Voyage.  You can even teach about teamwork of how the pilgrims had to work together to build a common house.  Every year I would perform a Thankful Festival for parents.  The performance focuses on being thankful, family and the feast.  I use music by Jack Hartmann.  He is my favorite children’s musical artist! We invite the families in to see us sing songs, and eat together.  Sometimes we do traditional food, but  I’ve done breakfast instead, if the timing of the show was early in the morning.

I use this time of year as an opportunity to talk about family traditions, sharing, cooking together, and teaching where food comes from.  Of course there is always the traditional turkey hand print that goes home every year and other turkey crafts.  I like to invite guest readers during this time too.  The holidays can make students a little excited, so a fresh new voice reading a book usually is just what the Dr. ordered to keep their attention.

School Plays for Children - Thanksgiving Activities

Turkey Craft Table Centerpiece

Turkey in Disguise Family Project

By far my favorite home project all year is Operation Disguise Turkey! We send a letter home with a turkey printable for the family to help disguise the turkey so it is not on the table for Thanksgiving.  Students also have to write a few sentences about the disguise.  The families are always creative! My son made his into a dog.  My daughter made hers into a vampire. Yes, a vampire.  I guess she still had Halloween on her mind.  The projects make a great conversational piece during the celebration with the family.

My Daughter’s Disguised Turkey

Turkey in Disguise Project  

Great Turkey Stories

I have two favorite turkey stories I read during Thanksgiving.  Turkey Trouble and A Plump and Perky Turkey.  Students compare and contrast food, write about how to trick a turkey, summarize, practice comprehension, and learn new vocabulary words with these stories.  If you have not read these adorable books,  I suggest you buy the books or find it at your local library.  They are my “Must Haves” for November.

A Plump and Perky Turkey Lesson Plan on Summarizing and Activities

$1000 Teacher Giveaway

The MEGA Labor Day Giveaway is here! We have teamed up with some AMAZING TpT authors to bring you 5 SHOPPING SPREES just for TEACHERS! We KNOW your job is a LABOR of LOVE  and want to THANK YOU for your dedication to your students!

We will raffle off:
 5 $200 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Cards ($1000 in TpT gift cards)

Enter the raffle here: http://gvwy.io/ycgbefy

Refer your teacher friends to increase your chances to win daily! Raffle Ends at 11:59 PM EST on 9/7/18. The lucky winners will be announced by 9/9/18. #LABORDAYLOVE

? Good Luck to you and all your Teacher Friends!

You must be a teacher to win and provide proof by providing your school name and grade level within 48 hours after contacted or a new random winner will be selected. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook or Teachers Pay Teachers. You understand that you are providing your information to the owner of this page and not to Facebook or Teachers Pay Teachers. No Purchase Required.

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How to Sell on Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT)

Teacher friends are always asking me how to start selling on TpT.  I love helping others!  I look forward to helping the people who have already took the step to become a seller (Teacher Author), and helping others who want to create some time-saving resources for teachers.  To be honest, it is not easy.  I started part-time, just working on the weekends.  Now, I resigned from teaching and work TpT full time.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE every minute of this job, but it is time-consuming.  Like anything, the more you focus on something, the more successful you will be at it.

How to be a TpT Author

First, let me have you ask yourself a couple questions to see if it is right for you.

  1. Do you have an educational background?
  2. Do you enjoy creating teaching material?
  3. Do you have a computer?
  4. Do you have time to spend creating materials?
  5. Have you worked in PowerPoint before?

If you answered yes, then there is a pretty good chance that you will enjoy working with TpT! Now, what do you need to do to get started?

Step 1: Join Teachers Pay Teachers.  You can use this Referral LINK to join as a seller for FREE. Once you get comfortable, and know it is the right fit for you, I highly suggest you upgrade to the premium account, so you get a better payout.  Think of a great name for your store.  You can use your own personal name like a lot of sellers, or you can create one that keeps your brand separated from your person.  Once you decide on a store name, check first to make sure no one else has your name by typing it in the TpT search bar.  This will be the way people remember you, so spend some time to really decide on something you will be happy with in the long run. You logo should be clear and not too wordy. Think of the colors you want for branding.

Step 2: Use PowerPoint to create your first resource.  The first one is a free resource, so make it nice so everyone knows what they can expect from you in future resources, but don’t go over 10 pages.  My first one was only 1 page, and it is really not a good representation of my type of products I offer now after all of my growth, but it makes me happy to see where I started. I also updated it with PowerPoint because the original was made in Word. SMH

TIPS FOR YOUR PRODUCT:

  • Create a cover
  • Put a copyright on each page
  • Have a border around each page
  • Find images and fonts on TpT to use in your product, (there are some free ones who just want you to link them in the credits, and you can use Pixabay for commercial use images for free)
  • Don’t break copyright law by copying others, be original
  • Use great search titles! TpT has a search bar that pops the top 5 searched titles for each letter you type in the bar. USE IT to make sure your title is what buyers are using to find your product.
  • Make a great preview (maybe the product in action)
  • Make sure the description is  VERY clear
  • Invest in your business with training, purchasing great fonts and images

Step 3: Once you are happy with your first product, upload it. Repeat this with another product, and this time put a price on it! Now it gets exciting! TpT has resources for you to find how to properly price items.  Make sure you look around the web site to become familiar with all it has to offer. TpT University and the forums are great places to find information.

Step 4: Download the TpT app to your phone, so you can hear the CHA CHING sound that plays when you get a sale.  It is motivating!

Feel free to visit my store Teacher’s Brain to look around to see how I write a description, make covers, and previews.  There is a lot more to learn, but this should get you started.  Do a search on YouTube for tips on how to make covers in PowerPoint.  That is how I got started.  After a few months, I  was able to create resources that I was really confident about making for teachers.  If you need a course that will really get you to focus, try The Focused Teacherpreneur Course with Shelly Rees.  It has been a game changer for me, and worth every penny.

Teacher-Seller Courses I offer:

Vital Tools for Teacher Sellers

TpT Seller Mini Course for Pinterest SEO

TpT Seller Mini Course for How to Price Resources

Good Luck!