Little Known TpT Tips for Buyers

For years before I finally decided to become a seller on Teachers pay Teachers, I was solely a buyer.  Here are a few things I learned over the years that I feel like many buyers don't know:

1.  Feedback = TpT Credits

That's right.  After you buy a product, make sure you go back and leave some love for the teacher-author!  For every dollar you spend, you will earn one TpT credit.  They even round up for you!  It seems like nobody does that anymore in the buyer's favor!  Don't believe me?  Click here to read more.

2.  Leaving Feedback vs. Product Q&A

Believe it or not, sellers love to hear from the people using our resources.  We love those warm fuzzies!  BUT, we are human and no matter how many times we look something over and even our colleagues look things over for us, sometimes something slips by.  If you do find a mistake of some sort in a product that you download for free or purchase, please let the seller know!  This is not done through leaving negative feedback.  If you find something in the product like a typo or a flat out mistake you should contact the seller through the Q&A first.  Give him/her a reasonable amount of time to respond.  Most sellers I have contacted with a problem have been very quick to respond and have been so gracious.  One even let me pick another product of hers for free for pointing out a few mistakes!

3. Check your My Purchases for updates

Products are updated for a number of reasons.  Sometimes sellers choose to update the style of the product, add pages, update content, etc.  Since you already purchased the item, you can simply download the updated version at no additional cost.   Next to the product icon, you will see a note in red font saying "Newly Revised Re-Download."

Making Space with a Bookshelf Reading Bench

I mentioned in my first post about how my hubby is very handy and I often put him to work on projects for my classroom.  This is one of my favorite projects he has done for my room, and the most recent.  I absolutely LOVE this bench!  Finding a spot for all of the browsing boxes each year was challenging.  This summer I was looking at classroom setups on Pinterest and found a few things I combined into THIS:

I brought home a few of the book boxes, added a tall book to measure for height, told him how many boxes I wanted it to fit and how tall the cushion would be. We wanted to make sure it wasn't too tall for first graders to sit on. This is what my husband came up with, and it's perfect! He even painted it for me!

My mom is a lot better at sewing than I am, so she helped me make the cushion. She measured and pinned and I sewed. I used an outdoor fabric and added a zipper so that I can wash it when needed.

The maximum number of students per room was supposed to be 18, so I had him make it to perfectly fit 18 boxes.  Well, you guessed it... that rule changed without informing teachers and now I have 19.  That one little box floating around really bothers me.  If only I had known!

The students LOVE laying on it during independent or partner reading.  It's an added option for flexible seating. I like that it has a purpose in holding all of those boxes, which has now freed up space on other shelves.  Win-win!

Differentiated Scrambled Sentences

When I first discovered cut and paste scrambled sentence worksheets in Spanish a year or two ago I was in LOVE. I liked the idea of reinforcing the basics of sentences like starting with a capital letter, leaving spaces between each word and ending with a period. They could even label the simple pictures that went with the sentence! I started to design my own to go along with the integrated units we were working on like seasons and organisms. All of the worksheets had the same format. Students were expected to cut out words and organize them into a sentence that made sense. Then they wrote the sentence on the line below.

What became more and more of an obvious problem was that this was not really beneficial for the lower students. First of all, they struggled to even read the words. If they couldn't read them, how could I expect them to put them in a logical order? When I worked 1:1 or in a small group to help them complete the worksheets, they often had to be reminded that the sentence needed to start with a capital letter. It just didn't work.  My students needed the activity to be differentiated.

I started making three different versions of the same worksheet.  Version 1 is for my lowest students who are really struggling.  They simply have to cut the words and glue them in order to match the sentence that is already written (made with both a regular line and ruled lines).  This is more of just a matching.  Version 2 has the students copy the sentence that is already written.  This gives them practice with handwriting, leaving spaces, starting with a capital letter and ending with a period.  Version 3 is the original version where students have to cut the words and organize them into a sentence before gluing and then writing.  These have been working much better.  I am working on a 4th even higher version now that it is nearing the middle/end of the school year.  Here are some student examples of versions 2 and 3 from my students (from the Spending & Saving Money pack found here in Spanish).

My higher student chose to go above and beyond by labeling her picture as well.  She carried this over from the beginning of the year when we really practiced labeling everything.

I did it!

Yikes!  I finally took the plunge and became a seller on Teachers Pay Teachers.  After 7+ years of being a bilingual teacher and having to create countless resources to use with my students, I decided to take things to the next level by making items available for others in the same situation.  I'll start with an introduction and a little about my teaching journey.

When not at school, I love to scrapbook, play volleyball, travel, and spend time with my family.  I am busy at home with my wonderful husband, two stepdaughters (12 and 14) and 3-year-old twin daughters.  My husband is very handy and often gets put to work making things for my classroom.  I am sure I will show off some of his handiwork in the future!  The older girls are busy with sports and always keep us running.  The younger girls love to play outside and with dolls.  Twins are amazing and it has been so fun watching them grow up together.

My first year teaching was a difficult one.  The first half of the day was spent teaching literacy to a mixed group of kindergarteners and 2nd graders.  (Yes, literacy for K/2. At the same time.)  In the afternoon I taught literacy to third graders.  Not being part of one grade level meant I didn't really have a team to work with.  The next year I switched to teaching a bilingual first grade class and joined a team with 3 others bilingual teachers.  Collaboration is a beautiful thing!  The following year I had to switch roles again and was moved to the dual immersion program.  I have been teaching dual language since then and love watching the students learn from one another.  At my school I am lucky enough to work with two other first grade bilingual teachers who are very willing to plan together and share resources.

I am excited to become a member of the blogging community and to share some of my classroom experiences with you!