I have been posting resources on Teachers Pay Teachers for over ten years! Yep, you read that right, ten years. At that time,I was a classroom teacher, tutoring like a mad woman after school hours, and a single mom. I didn’t post my resources to make any money, back then Teachers Pay Teachers was a place where you made something for your classroom, thought it might help other teachers, so you posted it for a buck or so and didn’t give it another thought.
I soon found myself making more and more resources for my own classroom. My school district did provide curriculum, almost too much. When we adopted a new math program, each teacher received boxes and boxes of manipulatives, piles of workbooks, a new digital program that took a three day professional development to learn, and yet, it still wasn’t necessarily what I needed.
As you know, each class is different. Each year is different. One year I had over half my fifth grade class did not know their multiplication facts. That year I needed rote multiplication worksheets and games. Another year, I had kiddos that were above grade level with nothing to challenge them. So, I made my own. Often times a lesson needed to retaught in a different way to reach those students who did not understand it the first way it was taught. So, a new resource was made. Skills need to be reviewed, especially before testing, so a new resource was made. You get my point!
Another reason I made my own resources was, do I dare say it…I got bored. After a few times teaching from the ELA anthology using the same old worksheets, I realized if I was bored, so were my students. It wasn’t the anthologies fault, it’s just I’m not a robot! One part of the job I loved was planning and creating activities for my class. I would imagine the excitement and the learning that would take place. It was one of the many reasons I became a teacher. If the lesson bombed, I learned from that experience and remade the resource. If it went well, I filed it away for the next time.
I loved teaching our fifth grade core literature novels. They were such incredible stories. So incredible, I would find myself getting lost in the story, rather than being able to meta-cognate while I read! In other words, I often made resources because I would forget the skill I was supposed to be teaching, whether it be problem/solution or inference, while I was reading. So, I created novel studies and grammar packs. This way, I could enjoy the book and pass that enthusiasm (hopefully) on to my students, without worrying about what I was teaching.
Finally, I made resources because there was very little collaboration in my grade level. I worked with great teachers! I had awesome friendships! But we had very different philosophies and teaching styles, so we didn’t share too much. We respected each other, but were often in different places during the year and as I said before, we had different class make-ups with differing needs. We really were islands! So, again I was making resources.
To make a long story short, I retired from teaching a few years ago, but wanted to stay relevant, involved, learning, and run my own business. So I cleaned up my resources and began making new ones, and I love my new life! And my new and improved Teacher Pay Teacher’s store!
Thanks you so much for stopping by!
Check out my TpT store here!
