(Disclosure: This blog post contains affiliate links, and if you click through and make a purchase, I will receive compensation at no additional cost to you.)
Leaves are changing, temps are dropping, terrifying decorations are adorning my neighbors’ yards, and pumpkin spice everything has been in full force for two months – yup, we’re smack in the middle of fall! Autumn may not be my favorite season weatherwise, and I’m NOT into spooky stuff, but I do enjoy sharing some light fall read alouds with the students in my school library!
There are so many wonderful books set in autumn, but to keep this post short and sweet, I picked five favorites to highlight today.
I love the book Leif and the Fall by Allison Sweet Grant and Adam Grant. It’s the story of Leif, a leaf who is afraid to fall to the ground. With the help of his friend Laurel, Leif designs numerous inventions to keep himself from falling or to brace his fall, but none of them works as he hopes they will, and he ends up discarding them all on the ground. When he can hold on no longer and the wind finally whisks him from the tree, he is surprised by what he discovers when he lands. This is a great story, and its wonderful lesson is especially appropriate if you incorporate STEAM into your library classes.
The Leaf Thief by Alice Hemming tells the story of a squirrel who is certain that there is a THIEF on the loose who is STEALING his leaves. With wonderful illustrations and captivating dialogue between the squirrel and his wise bird friend, this story is perfect for students in kindergarten and first grade! (Want some FREE learning resources to go with this book? Download a freebie from my TpT store that includes math and literacy printables that your students can use after reading this story!)
This short read aloud by Marty Kelley always delights my students! It is the story of a tree whose leaves always turn colors in wacky patterns! Instead of turning all red or orange like the other trees, this tree’s leaves change colors to resemble a soccer ball, hamburger, smiley face, and more. After reading this story, I give students a chance to draw their own trees that have changed colors in unusual and fun patterns. I have used this book with kids from Preschool through third grade over the years, and it is always seems to be a hit! (Sadly, it is out of print, so if you happen to find an inexpensive copy available on Amazon, snatch it up! Otherwise, check your local public library or a used book store!)
I discovered The Pumpkin Patch Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs last year and knew it would be a great fit for my preschool class in the Catholic school where I teach! The preschoolers have a farm-themed week in their classroom in early October, and The Pumpkin Patch Parable is a perfect story to end the week and tie in with their theme. The book explains the steps a farmer takes to grow and harvest his crops, how to carve a pumpkin, and at the end, the author brings the story to another level by encouraging listeners to let God’s light shine through them just as a jack o’ lantern lights up the dark night. I enjoy reading it to the preschool students in my library, and it would also be a great gift for Christian children at this time of year in families who may be looking for a “not scary” story to celebrate the fall season.
Little Acorn by Melanie Joyce is another story that I added to my read aloud repertoire for preschool library class last year. It chronicles the story of an acorn who falls to the ground, is hidden underground by a squirrel, and grows into an oak tree. The book explains the life cycle of an oak tree in rhyming verse, and those little acorn illustrations by Gina Maldonado Ruiz are just so cute!
I hope you decide to share some of my fall favorites with your students in your classroom or library!
If you are looking for resources to teach library skills this autumn, feel free to visit some of my other fall-themed blog posts such as this post where I have a FREE skeleton-themed book care worksheet for you to download, or this one with links to some of the first fall library TpT products I designed!
(Disclosure: This blog post contains affiliate links, and if you click through and make a purchase, I will receive compensation at no additional cost to you.)
(There are also numerous links to free TpT products…which are free…so no one receives compensation for those…but if you click through on those YOU get a free resource! Hurray!).
It’s been awhile, librarian friends, but I’m finally back with another list of amazing FREE products for your school library / media center! If you’ve visited my blog before, you know that I love TpT (the amazing site formerly known as Teachers Pay Teachers…and still located at teacherspayteachers.com…but now officially just TpT…it’s a whole thing).
Anyway, I’m constantly buying and designing TpT resources – but really, my absolute FAVORITE thing to do on the site is to download FREE resources. It’s just like snacking on free samples at a wholesale club, but without the empty calories and sticky fingers!
Bon appetite!
Genres
Enhance your library lessons about book genres with these awesome freebies!
This colorful Book Genre List by Erica Daniels would look stylish on a bulletin board or make a great handout for your students!
Reinforce the concept of fiction vs. nonfiction with this freebie by SPO Resources! (Pssst! I also have a freebie available in one of my blog posts that you can add to your collection of resources for this topic! Might as well double up on the fiction/nonfiction freebie fun!)
Here are some task cards by Copeland’s Got Class that you can use with your genre lessons!
These posters by Karin Stephens explain basic information about popular genres of literature!
Or try this set of free genre posters by Sharp in Second!
And here we have a more complex genre categorizing activity by Teaching and Motivating Teens for middle school students!
Text Features / Parts of a Book
When it’s time to teach your library students about text features and parts of a book, these FREE resources can help!
I’m excited to try this one with my students this year! It’s called the Nonfiction Text Features Linktivity® by The Classroom Nook, and at the time I’m writing this blog post, it has been downloaded over 39,000 times, so I’m guessing it’s pretty engaging!
Your little library learners can practice their alphabetical order skills with this freebie by Resources by Rachel!
This resource (by me!) includes several literacy and math printables to go with the picture book The Leaf Thief, including one that gives your students a chance to practice ABC order!
This freebie by ACParker allows students to work on ABC order, and it’s a great resource to file away and use in the spring!
Dewey Stuff
Teach your students about how the library is organized and encourage them to sample books from different areas of the nonfiction section!
These classic, understated Dewey Decimal Signs from Boundless Teaching and Learning would be just perfect to display in your nonfiction section!
This free printable by The Middle School Librarian gives students practice identifying in which section they can find certain nonfiction subjects in the library!
Michael Zetterberg’s Do the Dewey reading challenge is a creative way to encourage your students to explore the nonfiction section when they are selecting books to read!
Coding & STEAM
Add to your bag of tricks for Coding / STEAM / STEM lessons with these free products!
This fall, you can begin educating your students about coding with this autumn-themed unplugged coding activity by Tonya Coffey – Shen Valley Teacher!
If your students utilize both code.org and Scratch, this comparison chart by Miss Martin on the Go will help your students keep track of the functionality of the different types of blocks they will use with each!
With over 100,000 downloads, there is no question that this Mystery Build STEM challenge by Teachers Are Terrific is an excellent resource for librarians!
Library Signage and Decor
Transform your library with informational, inspirational, or otherwise sensational printables!
Created by Mrs Millis has a free, gorgeous bunting in her shop that reads “Read, Grow, Inspire”!
Set up some new book displays in no time at all with these Book Display Signs by beckiegirlbooks!
Just in time for the Barbie movie, That Library Girl has designed a fabulous freebie to help you set up a Barbie-themed book display in your biography section!
Here are some posters by The Kinder Lab and another set by Ms E Teacher of Tiny Humans that feature book characters!
This set of posters by O Some Great Stuff for English Teachers displays the covers of many popular and classic books. What an excellent way to decorate your middle school or high school media center for FREE!
Stash this one away for February! How cute are these free library-themed conversation hearts by Lacey Librarian?! I can’t wait to print and display them in my school library around Valentine’s Day!
If your fiction section is organized by genre or you want to feature a certain genre in a display, you will love these free fiction genre signs by Janet Miller!
Remind your students of the proper way to take care of a book with this free poster by Good Times and Good Books!
Clip Art
Decorate your library newsletters, posters, and more with cute and FREE clip art from TpT’s fantastic clip artists!
These products don’t fit neatly into one the categories above, but they’re sure to be a perfect fit in your school library!
Share your class agenda with these stylish slides by The Sparkling Librarian!
This pack of library printables by Black Girl in the Library includes fun activities for your students!
These book series labels by Elementary Library Resources could be a spectacular addition to your library!
File these library-themed coloring activities by Brittany Henderson with your back-to-school materials! Students can work together to make an amazing collaborative “We Love Our Library” poster!
Add this free printable by The Adorable Librarian to book care lessons this year!
Use these book lists by The Hungry Teacher to get some ideas of books you may wish to purchase for your library or recommend to students!
Introduce the topic of citing sources with this free coloring page (by me!). I love how much big kids enjoy the opportunity to color!
Give the game “Would You Rather?” a library spin using this freebie from Jennifer Siderius!
That’s all the free snacks for today, folks! I hope you enjoyed downloading these fabulous freebies from so many wonderful TpT shops!
Still hungry for more freebies? I’ve written several other blog posts that will provide you with even more free products you can use in your school library!
If you enjoyed these TpT freebies, make sure to follow my blog so that you can be sure not to miss my next post!
**Thank you to the TpT teacher-authors who gave me permission to include their free resources in this post! Please feel free to support their small businesses by following their stores and leaving feedback on their freebies!**
(The following banner is an affiliate link…if you click through and make a purchase, I will receive compensation at no additional cost to you.)
(Disclosure: This blog post contains affiliate links, and if you click through and make a purchase, I will receive compensation at no additional cost to you.)
Don’t you just LOVE those first few library lessons of the year? Getting to meet new students and see the sweet faces of returning students is *priceless*!
During the past couple of years, I have included The Book That Jake Borrowed by Susan Kralovansky as one of my first read alouds for my first and second graders. Reminiscent of the classic tale “The House that Jack Built,” this story has a “library book care” twist that makes it wonderful for little library learners. It tells the story of the misadventures of a book that a boy named Jake checked out from the library. Unfortunately, Jake does NOT take good care of the book he has borrowed. Throughout the course of the story, the library book has run-ins with a dog, a cat, a rat, and some jelly!
The kids really enjoy this book because it includes great moments for them to join in with me as I read. The students LOVE yelling out, “Oh no!” and making animal noises throughout the story.
To make the interactive aspect of the story even more fun, I created little “cue cards” to help make the students aware of when it is their turn to say their lines. I select five “helpers” to stand with me as I’m reading the story, and I cue each of them to hold up their sign when it’s time for the students in the class to say their line. The helpers AND all the other students always find this read aloud SO MUCH FUN!
(Btw, if you are teaching your students about book care, I also recommend the following book care coloring pages, available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. This has been one of my most popular products this Back to School season!)
Book Care Coloring Pages, available in my TpT store!
And, for more book care resources, please go ahead and visit one of my previous posts, where I have another book care freebie for you!
I wish you an amazing new school year! (And … I wish that no that library books that have had any interaction with dogs, cats, rats, or jelly are returned to your library!)
It’s THAT time of year – that stretch of late February when spring seems so close but SO far.
Spring…you are out there somewhere…right? RIGHT??!! – This image is a derivative of a photo by freegr from Pixabay
So…to brighten your day…I think it’s a perfect time for some freebies!
If you’re new around here, I should let you know that I LOVE the free products on TpT. (That’s why I design so many for my store!)
I also LOVE compiling lists of cool freebies on TpT for school librarians. (If you’ve never seen one of my lists before, check out this one and this one and this one too!)
So without further ado, here’s my latest list of FREE products for teacher-librarians on Teachers Pay Teachers. Snuggle up and get downloading, friends!
STEAM / Makerspace
Let’s start off with these imagination-boosting STEM challenge cards by Teaching Dinos! Students will enjoy building their way through desert survival scenarios!
And check out this playground design freebie from EdTech classroom! Your students will have a ball as they design and build a prototype of a playground!
Which of your students can build the longest paper chain? Find out with this easy and fun stem challenge. (This was a perfect fit for my firsties right before Christmas! We used red paper, and after our class, the kids brought them home to use as decorations!) The free resource includes a versatile engineering and design planning sheet that would work for many different types of stem challenges!
Here’s a perfect stem challenge to wrap up a long winter – a “build an igloo” challenge by The Classroom Around the Corner!
Coding
Help your library learners get ready for coding with these unplugged coding activities! TpT has this super freebie by PixelPixiesPH and this one by EdTech Classroom! So fun!
Genres
When you teach your students about literary genres, TpT has plenty of free posters to help you out! Try this set by Teaching Literacy and this set by A First for Everything with Julie Pettersen!
Library Signage & Posters
Bring some style to your library space and make things easy to find by labeling sections with these signs by Joyful Librarian!
And these signs by TaylorMade-1st Grade are great for teaching students about how to take care of books!
And now, it’s time for a freebie designed by me! I made this free poster set to spread positivity and remind students that libraries offer something for everyone!
Dictionary Skills / ABC Order
Give your students a chance to practice their dictionary skills with this great freebie by Little Red Writing House and another one by Free to Teach.
Now here’s a cute one for winter! Students can review ABC order and using guide words with this freebie by Wild in Second Grade!
From Mrs Humphries class, try this free activity to give your students an opportunity to practice alphabetical order!
Setting the Standard has a double feature for us – ABC order printable task cardsandBoom Cards™. Your little library friends can practice those ABCs whether you are teaching in person or virtually or a little of both!
In this freebie by More Than Math by Mo, students can enjoy an arctic animals theme as they practice their alphabetical order skills!
Research
Here are some terrific resources you can use when you are teaching your students how to research.
For your littles, this animal-themed research freebie by ATBOT the Book Bug would be a fun way to learn beginning research skills!
And this freebie by Travis Terry would make a great research assignment for your older students (and their science teachers will love you!)
Your preschool or kindergarten library students will love making these adorable library memory books by the Brave Little Librarian!
And this resource by ATBOT the Book Bug includes several activities your littlest library students will enjoy during your lessons about fiction and nonfiction!
Here’s a cute puzzle by Naomi Meredith for your little guys to complete when you introduce the topic of digital citizenship!
And let’s not forget these adorable library-themed songs by Vr2lTch!
Bookmarks
You can never have too many bookmarks! There are tons of cute, printable, and FREE options on TpT! Such as…
This set from Michael Friermood – The Thinker Builder, which also comes with complimentary and adorable posters!
Especially for Library Life in a Pandemic
Now it’s time for a SHOUT OUT to my fellow sanitizer-scented librarians who have the pleasure of teaching in person this school year! Here are a couple of goodies especially for you.
Did you ever think that book quarantining would be a thing? Yeah, me neither. But since it is, here’s some signage so you can label those potentially germy books while they de-germify! We’ve got a free book quarantine sign by To the Classroom and Beyond. And if you want a poster that really gets into the nitty-gritty of book quarantining dos and don’ts, here’s one from Flip and Flutter Creations!
And here are some signs by Shirley Anderson to remind students about sanitizing their hands before and after they touch books.
And to encourage social distancing, here is a free printable sign I designed that you can print off as a reminder of the expectation to social distance in the library or media center.
Fantastic and Fun Finds
These freebies didn’t fit neatly into my other categories, but they are just too darn awesome to pass up!
Are you teaching virtually and need a banner to make your Google Classroom™ a little brighter? Byte Sized Resources has you covered with this free banner set! Or, try this one by The LibrariYan! Or download both and keep switching them up!
I made this free deck of Boom Cards™ to help students practice organizing fiction books in alphabetical order by call number! It’s great for in-person learning or digital learning (if I do say so myself!). 😁
And this free product from Hands on Reading includes a fun library scavenger hunt and a book spine poetry activity!
So Many Freebies!
This concludes our latest TpT-freebie-ganza! Please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store (and the stores of any of these great TpT teacher-authors!) so you can discover other fantastic resources that will help you through that last L-O-N-G stretch of the school year!
**Thank you so much to the Teachers Pay Teachers teacher-authors who gave me permission to include links to their free resources in this post! Don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my blog so you don’t miss my next post!**
Disclosure: The banner below is an affiliate link. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive compensation at no additional cost to you.
Approximately 99.9340394% of primary teachers and elementary librarians spend at least a little time going over the difference between fiction and nonfiction. A similar percentage of children LOVE robots.
So I decided to switch up one of my usual lessons in my “fiction vs. nonfiction” unit this year in kindergarten library class and go with a robot theme. Our read aloud for one of the days was part of a nonfiction book about robots, and one of the accompanying activities was a robot-themed coloring page that compares fiction and nonfiction.
Hi friends! I hope you are all doing all right during this crazy time. My school was among many that shut down suddenly and unexpectedly on the 13th of March, for a minimum of three weeks, in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, so, like many of you, I’m getting used to a new way of living.
Now, two days before the 13th, aka a million years ago, on Wednesday, March 11th, I was all super excited because my Teachers Pay Teachers store had reached 500 followers. I was planning a little celebration involving a new freebie, a sale, and maybe even a dance party, wahoo! That Wednesday, ideas bopped around happily in the little TpT section of my brain. But by Friday, the TpT part went into a temporary hibernation as I attempted to process the strange, new information that COVID-19 was so serious that my school closed. Oh, and not just mine, but basically all of them, and the entire world. Heh?
So I took a few days to adjust to this new lifestyle, and eventually decided I still want there to be a little celebration in the So Blessed to Be a Teacher world, because celebrations are happy and we all need happy right now. So, I modified my go-forward plan for how to celebrate my 500 followers. Here’s what I came up with.
1. I made the freebie that was bopping around my imagination on March 11. (It turned out cute, if I do say so myself! You can download it here). But it’s a poster to decorate your library, and, well, you probably aren’t there right now. So I decided that when you download it, you guys might feel the level of joy you’d get if you were receiving a free bucket of rock salt in July.
SO
2. I made two MORE little freebies that can be used on Google Classroom. It was my first attempt at designing resources with distance learning in mind. I would love if you could try them out and tell me what you think! (They are available for FREE here and here).
THEN
3. I set up a GIVEAWAY for my 500 Teachers Pay Teachers followers! (Because giveaways are fun no matter what!) One lucky follower of my store will win a $10 gift card to Teachers Pay Teachers. If you follow me on TpT, check your Teachers Pay Teachers inbox for the link to enter the giveaway. (Don’t follow me yet but want to start? Click here to start following me on TpT, and then send me an email or use the contact link above to tell me your follower number, and I’ll send you the link to enter! The winner will be chosen at 12 AM Eastern Time on March 27, 2020.) (**UPDATED 03/27/20: Congratulations to Julieann, the giveaway winner! Be sure to follow my Teachers Pay Teachers store so you will hear about sales, new products, and my next GIVEAWAY!)
AND
4. I set everything in my TpT store to go on sale from March 22, 2020 to March 25, 2020. Even though school is closed for now, sales are always fun, and some teachers actually have a little time browse around on TpT, so I figured, why not? In the spirit of my last blog post, I am going to donate 50% of profits during my sale to Save the Children, this time to help out with all the needs that are arising due to COVID-19, so it’s actually a great time to stock up on resources that you can use when we are past this wacky period of time! (**UPDATED 03/27/20: Thanks so much to those who made purchases during my sale! Your purchases made it possible for me to make a donation to Save the Children! Yeah!)
AND FINALLY
5. The dance party is on, but, COVID-19 distance learning style. Right now, wherever you are, bust a move!
May God bless you guys during this strange-but-true time we are living in. Stay well and keep taking it day by day!
My last post was all about FREE products on TpT for your school library. (Go visit it if you would like to download 50+ freebies that you can use in the library!)
After writing that post, I decided I was due to add a couple of brand new freebies for school librarians to my own TpT store. And I’m going to be honest with you…I kind of like these freebies…a lot.
I’ve had some time over this summer to reflect on teaching and my place in it all, and my conclusion has been this: if I don’t help kids learn to be kind, loving, accepting, compassionate, and hungry for knowledge, not much else matters. Realistically, a lot of what our kids are learning is going into their short-term memory and is on its way out after it gets chicken-scratched onto a test. Who they are becoming will last the rest of their lives. (I know that I’m not the first one to come up with this idea, but I feel like during certain seasons of life as a teacher and a parent, you look at the big picture more…and I guess that’s where I am right now.)
With that in mind, I posted a free coloring page I developed for my own students when I read the book Be Kind by Pat Zietlow Miller to them last year. I didn’t put it up because I think the coloring page is that amazing, or anything like that, but because I really hope that other teachers and librarians will read this book with their students, or will take the time, for no particular reason, to talk about kindness. Like, often. And if one day the kids want to color a picture while that talk is going on, so be it.
The second freebie, which I literally JUST put up right before I’m writing this post, is a poster set that addresses the idea that libraries are for everyone and that there is something for everyone in the library. At the last TpT sale, I picked up some super cute clip art of gorgeous, diverse kids (by Illumismart), which got me thinking about the awesomeness of libraries and how they are a perfect place for ALL types of kids to gather and learn together. The knowledge, entertainment, technology, and enrichment available in libraries appeal to all groups of people and can benefit anyone. Kids might seek out libraries for different reasons, but libraries are spaces for everybody in a community to grow in knowledge. So I designed this poster set for school librarians, classroom teachers, public librarians, or anyone to download and print, hoping that it will help students with different abilities and backgrounds to feel welcome to learn and create at their library.
If you are interested in either of these freebies, please please please download them, and don’t hesitate to show them to a friend who might be able to use them too. (I don’t think we can overdo the ideas of kindness, acceptance, and loving libraries and learning!)
In other news, TpT is having a one-day bonus sale on Tuesday, August 20, 2019, until 11:59 ET, and you can get up to 25% off everything in my store and around Teachers Pay Teachers! (With the school year RIGHT around the corner, I have informed my son and daughter to keep a close eye on me to keep my spending under control! I guess we’ll see how it goes…I do have candy to distract them if necessary!)
Happy New School Year! Wishing you a new school year full of love, libraries, sale prices, kindness, free stuff, candy, enthusiasm for learning, and everything awesome!
_____________ Disclosure: The banner below is an affiliate link. If you click through and make a purchase, I will receive compensation at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support of my blog!
(Disclosure: This blog post contains several affiliate links, and if you click through and make a purchase, I will receive compensation at no additional cost to you.)
(Note: This blog post also contains NUMEROUS just-because-I-love-you links to MANY free products on Teachers Pay Teachers, and if you click through and download the free products, nothing particularly exciting happens for me, but you get the FREE TpT resources! Wahoo!)
So…I’m sorry it has been a really, really long time since I’ve published a post. I’ve been, you know, teaching and momming and stuff.
And then, when I didn’t write for awhile, I felt like I needed to prove that I was not a total blog delinquent by making sure my next post was worth the long wait…
…and…here it is! It’s time for another list of FREE PRODUCTS that you can find on TpT and use in your school library. I have over 50 goodies to show you today! (If you’ve missed my other lists of freebies, click here and here to cash in on over 80 other free TpT products available for librarians!)
Here’s a quick and easy and science-y activity that your students can try in your makerspace! Teaching Tidbits and More with Jamie designed this freebie that lets kids experiment with making 3-D shapes out of card stock and seeing which shape is best at holding up books. It’s a great challenge for the library, since you probably have a book or two kicking around! 🙂
And here’s a super fun STEM challenge for the media center – Build a Gingerbread Man Trap by Smart Chick. It would work well with so many gingerbread-themed read aloud books!
Looking for a way to keep track of what’s going on in your makerspace? That Library Media Teacher has created this free product that includes both printable and digital surveys that students can fill out to share what types of activities they explore when they visit the makerspace!
Get your little library learners’ minds ready for coding with this hot dog themed offline coding activity by iGameMom STEM Learning!
And here’s another free activity courtesy of Teaching with Jackie. This one is just spectacular for practicing coding skills without devices. I tried it with my first grade students last year and I could almost see the lightbulbs lighting up above their heads as they started to understand the basic idea of coding!
If you want to take screen-free coding to the next level, you’ve got to try this free resource by Tess the Krafty Teacher. This product will help you get started with using a Code & Go Mouse to teach your students about coding! She also has another awesome freebie that’ll get you going with Bee Bots.
When you’re ready for your students to begin with online coding activities, check out this freebie from Mrs. J in the Library, which will help you get your students started with Scratch and Lightbot!
Kids love the “David” books by David Shannon! This printable activity by Little Miss Librarian helps students to think about proper library procedures by inviting the students to imagine that David takes a trip to the library! Your beginning-of-the-year review of library rules can be so much fun as your kids can imagine good choices and bad choices that David might make at the library!
Using a Card Catalog
Practicing with an online card catalog is a must in the library today. Help your upper elementary students gain proficiency with a card catalog with this free product from That Library Media Teacher. (After all, the better they are at finding stuff in the library, the less you have to find for them!)
And here is another free resource that can help your students as they use the card catalog! That Library Girl has put together a free form that will assist your kiddos by giving them an easy way to record the information they find when they look up a book.
Dewey Decimal System
Here is a free printable by Pooley Productions that can be used when your students study the Dewey Decimal System!
For the Little Guys and Gals
This is a derivative of an image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Give your younger students a chance to practice with a basic table of contents with this freebie by Christine Reed!
This free activity by Katie Blair Young asks students to figure out whether books are fiction or nonfiction and why. It’s great for reviewing fiction and nonfiction with your littlest library students!
ABC Order
With this autumn-themed alphabetical order freebie by Differentiation Station Creations, your students can practice the essential library skill of using ABC order!
And Deanna Cappucci has designed a cute free product so that your students can practice ABC order by alphabetizing each other’s names! (In the library, I could see this working well with first AND last names so that kids can get the idea of alphabetizing books by authors’ last names!)
Students can practice alphabetizing to the 2nd letter with this Earth Day ABC order freebie, available in More than Math by Mo’s store.
And here is a fantastic set of ABC order task cards! Thanks for the freebie, Erin J Murray!
Research and Reference Books
This printable activity by Teaching with Tamara allows kids to practice their dictionary skills while looking up some homonyms. When I SAW this resource, I knew it would be JUST RIGHT for this CURRENT blog post! 🙂
3…2…1…blastoff! Give your kids a chance to practice their research skills and learn about the planets with this freebie by Imaginative Teacher! Students could use this activity to practice with encyclopedias, and the product also includes a list of suggested websites the kids can use to research this topic!
Or your students could use reference books, along with other library resources, to do some totally fun animal research with this free product from The Library Patch!
Book Review Activities
Asking your students to recommend books to classmates can get kids excited about checking out books from the school library. Here is a cute Halloween-themed book review template designed by Kim Miller that you can have your students fill out to share their favorite library books with their friends!
Looking for other book review options? Here is another great and free book review form by Amanda Rose Resources! Or try this book review freebie by Josie’s Place!
Many students love to color, so it’s wonderful to have reading-themed coloring pages on hand for your fast finishers. Here is a great coloring sheet for your library by EveryLittleThing!
I don’t know about you, but I have a few students who are constantly telling me, “I forgot it was library day! I didn’t bring my book!” The Swamped Teacher has developed a freebie that will help with this very situation. By printing out these reminders and making them into magnets to send home with your students, you’ll help students and families remember to return library books!
Do you want to get your library students curious about some of your favorite books? This free, printable sign by Library Learners will give you an excuse to start chatting it up about a favorite title!
Here are some simple, cute, FREE forms you can send home with your students who have done an excellent job in the library. This freebie by Andrea Walkup makes it so easy to acknowledge students for good choices in the media center.
This free product from The Librarian’s Literature Links gives you a super-easy way to give classroom teachers information about what went on in your library class each week. The form includes a spot to point out star students, students who struggled, and students with overdue library books, as well as some basic information about what you did with the whole class. I’m planning to try using these in my school library this year!
Bookmarks
For a FREE, cute, and library-ish birthday gift for your students, how about these free birthday bookmarks, courtesy of Library Learners?!
ElementaryVibes has designed these free bookmarks featuring the Good Egg, the Cool Bean, and their friends. (How adorbs!)
Next, from Librarian Vickie, we have some posters that you can use to teach your students about different genres!
Decorate the walls of your library with these great library freebies – a set of reading quotes posters by Alexandra Stewart and a set of library-themed posters by BlackCoffeeBlackNails!
Encourage your library students to read with this printable “READ” banner set by Josie’s Place! Or here’s a “READ” poster set by Erin E Townsend!
And for more all-year-long-decoration fun, you can download this free product from Primary Teacher Solutions by Mark Johnson. These posters show children reading during each of the twelve months of the year!
And…here’s a free product from my store that you can use to decorate your library! I call these “Strive Stars” because I’m hoping that they will inspire kids to strive to do great things. This set includes nine printable pages, each containing a large star with an encouraging message along with a smaller blank star (just to make your display more visually appealing). Designed to save ink but still make a colorful display, these understated black-and-white stars can be printed on bright printer paper before you cut them out. (I like me some Astrobrights, but any colorful paper will work!) The set includes some stars that have a Christian theme as well as some with messages that would work in any school setting.
Clip Art
Teacher-librarians always need book clip art for different projects, so download this free clip art by Allison Fors that includes opened and closed books!
And here is some gorgeous clip art of kids reading by SchoolBoxTreasures! Perfect for library newsletters, overdue slips, worksheets, or whateva!
Let’s Hear it for Teachers Pay Teachers!
TpT really is a beautiful place. I just highlighted over 50 FREE products for librarians, and there are so many more terrific resources available there that will help your school library to be the best it can be. Feel free to visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store (or the stores of any of these great TpT teacher-authors!) so you can discover other nifty resources that will help you save time and increase the overall awesomeness of your library!
**Thank you so much to the Teachers Pay Teachers teacher-authors who gave me permission to include links to their free resources in this post! For more freebies, click here and here to check out my other posts about free resources for your school library. Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss my next post!**
Disclosure: The banner below is an affiliate link. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive compensation at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support of my blog!
Whoa, baby! Vacation is really almost here! Actually, it probably IS here for some of you lucky teachers!
But for those of you who have to put in a few more weeks like me, I thought I’d direct you to a freebie in my TpT store that might be helpful for a couple of those last library classes! I made this free product around this time last year, and I just updated it today with one new printable worksheet. So now, it includes three no-prep, print-and-go worksheets that work like a charm during those last few totally crazy weeks of school.
That’s it for today! I’m sure you have an awards ceremony, spring concert, faculty meeting, banquet, field trip, field day, exam, classroom cleanup, or library inventory to get to…so I’ll see you next time! 🙂
The more time I spend searching TpT, the more I wonder how I got by without it for so long! There are just so many talented teachers who contribute to Teachers Pay Teachers, and it is so awesome to be able to improve my instruction with their creativity and ideas.
As someone who both buys and sells on Teachers Pay Teachers, I thought I’d share some tips I’ve noticed along the way that will help you get the most for your money!
Shop the Freebies…
Every single seller on TpT is required to have at least one freebie. That means you can legally and ethically get something for free from EVERYONE on TpT, including some of the best educators in the WORLD. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I shop the freebies quite often.
Sellers upload freebies to get their names out there, earn positive feedback, give something back to all the hardworking teachers out there, and get kids around the world using their resources. They WANT you to download their freebies. Go wild! Here are mine – shop away! (By the way, if you happen to be a school librarian and need some freebies that will work well in a school library, check out my previous posts, “Freebies for Your School Library on Teachers Pay Teachers” and “MORE Freebies for Your School Library on Teachers Pay Teachers” to see some of the awesome free products I have found!)
Be sure you have signed up for the weekly TpT newsletter, which highlights 10 freebies every week, to keep up with new and fantastic freebies.
…And Shop Them NOW!
Here’s the thing about freebies on Teachers Pay Teachers – they don’t always have to remain freebies. Sellers can and do change their products from free to paid whenever they want. So if you see something you like, and it’s free, then download it right away – don’t let it sit on your wish list! If you have already downloaded it, you’ll still have access to the file if you need to download it again later, even if the seller decides to increase the price. Some sellers offer occasional “flash freebies” that are free only for a short amount of time, so if you see a flash freebie, you always want to click quick and get it right away.
Speaking of Wish Lists…
While it does not make sense to add freebies to your wish lists (just get them right away!), DO add resources to your wish list that you like but can’t buy at the moment. There’s always a chance that the seller will change the price, or bundle that resource with others, and then you can save money wholesale club style. Having a wish list helps you keep track of products so you can periodically check prices and watch for potential bundle savings. Having an active wish list also sets you up to get the resources you want at seriously fabulous prices when they go on sale.
And…Speaking of Sales…
Teachers Pay Teachers has occasional sitewide sales in which you can receive discounts of up to 25%. Teachers Pay Teachers and the individual teacher-authors partner together to provide the discount, so you can save a lot of money in many TpT stores. Typically, there is a unique discount code for each sale, so keep a look out for emails about when these sales are happening.
Individual sellers, and small groups of sellers, also throw sales sometimes, so be sure to follow the sellers you love so that you’ll know about their sales.
Leaving Feedback = A Coupon
Okay, so you know how at some fast food places, the receipt says that if you call a number and do a survey on your experience, and then you get a free coffee or burger? Well, TpT does that too, except it is MUCH less of a hassle. No receipt to clutter up your purse, no phone number to call – just a couple of clicks to provide your feedback and get credits toward future purchases.
Let’s say you purchase a resource that costs $10. If you leave feedback for the seller, you will receive 10 “credits” that you can use toward a future purchase. Each credit ends up being worth 5 cents, but they add up quickly – that one $10 purchase got you 50 cents worth of credits, so imagine what a back-to-school shop-til-you-drop could do. TpT rounds up for you, also, so if the resource was $9.50, you’d still get 10 credits.
It actually works out well for everyone, because sellers love to receive feedback on their work, and buyers love discounts.
Love a Resource? Buy With a Buddy!
If you and a colleague are both interested in the same resource on Teachers Pay Teachers, you can save money if one of you purchases the resource plus an additional license, which will be at a discounted price – usually 10% off. (Just as an FYI, TpT sellers price each resource based on the idea that it will be used by one teacher only, so to make sure you are abiding by copyright law and the seller’s terms of use, you’ve gotta get those additional licenses if you and a friend both want to use a resource!)
Become a Groupie
When you find a great resource and know you’ll be back for more products from that seller, it makes sense to follow that seller, both on TpT AND on his or her blog and/or social media. TpT sellers use blogs and social media to keep you informed of flash freebies, sales, new products, and sometimes even gift card giveaways, so it makes a lot of sense to follow them every which way you can so you don’t miss any news.
(You can follow me on Teachers Pay Teachers by clicking here, and on Pinterest by clicking here and then clicking “Follow.” Oh, and you can subscribe to my blog by typing in your email address up at the top of this post!). (Update 05/17/18: I am now on Instagram too…click here and click “Follow”!) 🙂
Now, when you follow sellers on TpT, you will be the first to know about their new products, which is awesome because sellers often list their products at a reduced price for the first 24 or 48 hours. I do this somewhat haphazardly at my store, I’ll admit, but I have seen some stores that do it for EVERY new product, and I have even seen some that list ALL their products as FREE for 24 hours or so. The thing is, you aren’t necessarily going to know what is going on with the sellers you follow unless you log into TpT regularly, so make sure that Teachers Pay Teachers makes the list of sites / apps you check often – not just when you need a specific resource.
And feel free to take a step beyond following and actually connect with TpT sellers. They are, after all, just teachers like you and me who probably love meeting new people, learning, networking, and sharing ideas. True story: one time, I emailed a TpT seller with a question about a resource, and after a few emails back and forth, this generous seller offered to make some changes to the product AND give me a free resource, all for checking in with her. If you love a seller, comment on his/her blog posts or social media, leave a positive feedback or Q & A comment in TpT, or send an email to say hi or ask a question. You may end up with a free product, a free TpT gift card, some new teaching tips, or even a new pal!
Bundles, Bundles, and More Bundles!
As I mentioned when I was talking about wish lists, buying resources as part of a bundle is a great way to save money. (A bundle is just a group of resources sold together for less money than they would be if you bought them individually.)
In some TpT stores, growing bundles are also an option, which means that when you purchase the product, it is incomplete (but a lot cheaper) and more resources will be added to the product over time. Be sure to read product descriptions carefully so you know what you are buying, but this can seriously be an awesome way to get the resources you need without spending too much money.
For example, I recently purchased a clip art growing bundle that cost me $5. The price went up as more and more resources were added, and now, at the time this is being posted, the same resource costs $36.50, but I can access all of the clip art, even the clip art that was just added. Oh, yeah!
Maybe Somebody Else Wants to Pay for That?
If your school gives you a budget to spend on classroom supplies, don’t forget that TpT products can fall into that category. Teachers Pay Teachers even accepts purchase orders for purchases over $20, making it even easier to make purchases with the school district’s money.
Better yet, share info about Teachers Pay Teachers’ newest program, TpT for Schools, with your principal. TpT for Schools allows teachers to request educational products on TpT and send those requests to their administration, who can then purchase resources for each teacher. I’m thinking this could be a perfect way to get funds for those big ticket items you might not otherwise be able to afford. It’s definitely worth checking out – if your principal likes the idea, you may end up with fabulous TpT resources that you can use in your classroom without having to pay for them yourself!
Also, don’t forget about all those unbelievable PTO parents out there who go above and beyond to help their children get the best education possible. You could consider contacting the school/parent organization at your school about the possibility of purchasing resources or TpT gift cards.
Track Your Spending for Tax Savings
(Disclosure/Disclaimer: I am not an accountant, nor do I play one on TV! The following information is not intended to be considered tax advice. Please consult a qualified tax professional before making any tax-related decisions.)
If you do have to foot the bill for Teachers Pay Teachers resources yourself, here’s another tip! This isn’t exactly a way to save money on your purchases, but it could save you some money overall. The money you spend on TpT may be tax deductible, even with the new tax plan rolling out for your 2018 filing. (There was some debate on whether that deduction was going to stick around, but it did! Yay!) The TpT site does keep track of your purchases, so it will be easy to figure out how much you spent when you are doing your taxes.
If you are buying resources to use in your classroom, the deduction is for up to $250 of expenses that were not reimbursed, and educators who work at least 900 hours a year in a K-12 school may be eligible.
If you are TpT seller, the purchases you make on TpT to use for the resources you sell (e.g. clipart, borders) can offset your earnings, resulting in less taxable income, so sellers should keep track of those expenses as well.
(Again, please check with your tax professional to discuss your unique tax situation. For more information, you can read these articles on the IRS website about the educator expense deduction and small-business expenses.)
Ready to Save on TpT?
I hope these ideas will make your shopping trips on TpT even more fun because you’ll know you are providing your kids with the best resources and saving money at the same time!
