Tag: Teaching Resources

Save Time This Year with My HUGE Bundle of Bundles!


(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.)

If someone were to ask me to choose a favorite library skills TpT product that I have made over the years, I probably would go with a cop out answer like “they are like my children…I can’t pick a favorite!”

With that in mind, let me introduce you to my HUGE Bundle of Bundles for the Library / Media Center, which is just what it sounds like – a HUGE bundle of library goodness. It’s all of my library bundles, plus a few other great library products, all in one gigantic download. If I HAD to choose a favorite library skills TpT resource of mine, I’d go with this one. It contains a total of 27 products I have made over the years…so I like it approximately 27 times more than any one of my individual products. 😊

bookshelves with picture books and text overly that says, "Huge Bundle of Bundles for the Library / Media Center with over 250 printable pages"

A Variety Pack of Library Learning

I personally use something from this bundle in my own school library almost every week. From coloring pages to center activities to worksheets, there is something for everyone in this treasure chest, and having so many options all in one spot can really save you time as you plan your library lessons!

The printable worksheets cover topics including book care, fiction and nonfiction, alphabetical order, dictionaries, encyclopedias, author and illustrator, biographies, arranging fiction and nonfiction books, library behavior, and more. Librarians who have purchased this bundle have commented on the assortment of activities, including Kelley, who stated in her TpT feedback, “There are so many wonderful resources included in this bundle! It seems like no matter what I am covering, there is something in here I can use!” I was also thrilled when Cheryl, a TpT customer who purchased this product, recently left the following review: “These library skills sheets have become an indispensable part of my library classes for Kindergarten-2nd grade.” It has been so great to hear that my product is a go-to in these school libraries!

Games and Centers to Increase Engagement

Sometimes you need to mix things up with a new game or center activity for your class…and this bundle of resources delivers! One favorite from the bunch is my Nonfiction Pizza activity, which helps students learn about the nonfiction section of the library, all while building an adorable pizza. It’s a favorite among my fourth grade students each year!

Another activity your students will enjoy in this Bundle of Bundles is my set of call number puzzles, which give kids practice with arranging fiction and nonfiction books in the order they would be found on the library shelves. This center activity adds a little extra fun to the process, however, because as kids arrange the call numbers, they are building a puzzle that displays a fascinating fact about an animal.

assembled puzzle depicting a squirrel that reads, "Did you know? Squirrels have sweat glands on their feet" with call numbers on the bottom of each piece of the puzzle.
Call Number Puzzles, available in the HUGE Bundle of Bundles for the Library / Media Center, are a fun and engaging library activity.

Those are just two of the centers and activities available in this comprehensive resource!

Shop Fat Brain Toys - A Smarter Way to Play!

Grab the HUGE Bundle of Bundles Today!

It’s not too late to add this bundle to your collection and get 27 resources all in one place at an awesome discount. I believe this resource will be a game changer for you in your new school year!

100 Back To School Products Under $10 At Discount School Supply! Shop Now - Get Free Shipping On Ord

Copyright Resources for Teachers and Librarians

This image is a derivative of a CC0 image courtesy of StartupStockPhotos on pixabay

The internet is overflowing with information and media. There is just SO much content out there, and much of it is just a few clicks away! As someone who remembers looking at documents on those old microform machines for my own school assignments, I am, frankly, a little jealous of today’s students. (However, I did get to say the word “microfiche” from time to time, and our students don’t, and it’s a pretty fun word to say. So there.)

The downside to so much information that is easy to access and free? It’s easy to access and free, so kids can forget that it does not belong to them. Just because you CAN copy and paste and download words, pictures, songs, and videos from the internet in less than 5 seconds doesn’t mean you should. And if you do, it does not mean they are YOURS.

On the other hand, all those words, pictures, songs, and videos ARE there to be read, seen, heard, and accessed, and some of them, such as those in the public domain, are even available for almost any type of use. As teachers and librarians, we want our kids to find and use information, and although we don’t want them to misuse others’ creations, we certainly don’t want them to be afraid of finding and using media and information. We want to help our students learn to synthesize information and create new content, all while being respectful of others who have also created content.

With the complex nuances of copyright law and the ever-changing nature of technology, helping kids with all that can be a daunting task. But, I figured I’d take a stab at helping you help them!

This image is a derivative of a CC0 image courtesy of rawpixel on pixabay

Below, you’ll find links to some resources you can use to help your students get on the right track when it comes to copyright issues.

Disclaimer: I am NOT an attorney, so I cannot attest to the accuracy and validity of any information that can be found on any of the websites/resources I’ve linked to below! At the time this post was published, these websites and resources provided information that, based on my experience as an educator, may be useful to teachers, librarians, and students.

Copyright and Creative Commons Resources for Educators
  1. Common Sense Education – The Common Sense Education organization has created several fabulous videos and lesson plans that can help you teach your students about copyright, such as this Copyrights and Wrongs lesson – all available for free! That particular lesson was designed for high school students, but it could be adapted for middle schoolers, and there are other lessons for younger students on the site as well. (You do need to create an account to access these lessons, but it’s easy and free, and there is bunch of other cool digital citizenship stuff there too that you might be able to use!)
  2. Copyright Kids – Copyrightkids.org, created by the Copyright Society of the USA, is a kid-friendly site that kids can use to explore basic information about copyright law. In the past, I have asked students to visit the site to learn some background info on copyright and then take the Copyright Challenge. I would love to see the site make some updates, since I haven’t noticed any changes in the 5+ years I have been using it, but overall there seems to be a lot of useful information that kids are able to understand.
  3. Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright – This resource, available on the Library of Congress website, shares great info on copyright geared for children, including an interesting (well…interesting for geeks like me) timeline of the history of copyright.
  4. Copyright Term and Public Domain in the United States – Cornell University – When your students already have a basic understanding of what “public domain” is, this chart by Cornell University’s Copyright Information Center can be used to help students determine whether works are part of the public domain.

    CC0 image, courtesy of JaneMarySnyder on Pixabay
  5. Teaching Copyright – TeachingCopyright.org is a project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and it provides teachers with five lesson plans and other resources that you can use to educate your students about copyright.
  6. Creative Commons – Hit up CreativeCommons.org to give your students the basics on Creative Commons right from the source. I enjoy this flow chart available there that breaks down the different types of Creative Commons licenses.
  7. Can I Use That? A Guide to Creative Commons – This resource by Gail Desler clarifies questions you and your students might have about use of images with Creative Commons licenses. It’s very thorough, and as you read it, you’ll find links to many other fantastic resources that will add to your understanding of copyright.
  8. Finding Copyright-Friendly Photos for the Google Images Generation – This article by Kathy Schrock can be found in eSchool News, and it’s an awesome introduction to helping kids find photos to use in their school projects. It has a great overview of Creative Commons and also provides links to some sites that have free images that students can use in their schoolwork. (If you are still looking for more lessons and resources related to Creative Commons and copyright, Kathy Schrock has compiled a monster list of these types of resources on her website, Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything.)

I hope all those links will help you get started in the tricky task of teaching kids about copyright!

This image is a derivative of a CC0 image courtesy of rawpixel on pixabay

(By the way, the photos used in this post are thanks to the generous photographers out there who upload their photos with a CC0 mark onto pixabay.com – a website that just so happens to be another great place to visit when discussing copyright and Creative Commons!)

FREE Coloring Fun for Catholic Schools Week (or Any Time!)

Happy Catholic Schools Week to all the Catholic school teachers out there! If you work in a Catholic school, this week typically brings special events, spirit days, a little bit of chaos, and LOTS of fun.

To celebrate Catholic Schools Week, I developed a little freebie for you over at my Teachers Pay Teachers store! It’s a coloring page that lists the names of some of the books of the Bible, and students need to color the shapes with Old Testament Books red and the shapes with New Testament Books pink. The resulting picture will be a colorful heart – to remind the kids of God’s great love for them!

I figured it would work well during Catholic Schools Week, OR as a Christian-themed Valentine’s Day activity, OR as an “any time” activity for your classroom, religious ed program, or homeschool. Click the cover image below to pop over to my store and get your freebie! 🙂

Or click here to see ALL the freebies at my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today! May God bless you! 🙂

 

 

 

 

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. 

Advent promotion

My #1 New School Year Tip: Join Teachers Pay Teachers!

I think most teachers would agree that the real “New Year” begins in August or September when the school year starts. New students and new policies and new schedules are bigger changes than what we see when the ball drops between December and January.

From planning to cleaning to decorating to organizing to copying, there is a ton of work to do as the school year starts, and I’m going to suggest that you add one more itty bitty thing to your list. But it’s a thing that will ultimately make some of the other things easier. AND make the rest of the school year easier.

JOIN TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS!

Really. Do it. Yesterday.

What It Is…and What Else It Is

Okay. So I had heard about Teachers Pay Teachers long before I actually tried it, and waiting so long to give it a go was a MISTAKE. Basically, before I registered for TpT, I used to spend a lot of time on Google trying to search for “free” lesson ideas and worksheets and coloring pages for my students. Sometimes, a search result would pop up that said it was on Teachers Pay Teachers and I’d be like, “Oh, that sounds great!” but then I’d be like, “Oh, it’s on Teachers Pay Teachers. And I don’t want to pay for anything right now. So, no thanks.” To be honest, something about the name Teachers PAY Teachers irked me a little at first and made me feel like everything was going to be really expensive.

As time went on, those Teachers Pay Teachers items showed up more and more. Meanwhile, I also found that more often than not, randomly searching the rest of internet brought me to a bunch of weird spammy sites. I eventually concluded that I WAS going to end up paying SOMEONE, and it was beginning to look like the money would be going to a tech-y dude who gets spyware off your computer. I figured I was better off giving money to some fellow teachers than having my computer infected with internet gunk.

So I joined the site and accepted that I would, in fact, be a teacher that was paying other teachers.

But in my first few minutes looking around the site, I found out something very important about Teachers Pay Teachers. Yes, it is a site where you can purchase fantastic resources created by other teachers. But IT IS ALSO a place where teachers GIVE AWAY FABULOUS FREE PRODUCTS.

Yay TpT! SO MUCH is Free!

There are FREE lesson plans, FREE coloring pages, FREE classroom posters, FREE fonts, FREE videos, FREE printable worksheets, and much more. Get this- every single person who sells on Teachers Pay Teachers MUST have at least one freebie (really – it is a requirement in order to be a seller!). So we are talking about THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of FREE products.

So I went on a free downloading spree. It was basically what I had been TRYING to do many times before during my Googling sprees, but SO much easier and more successful. I can’t even believe how many free worksheets and other resources I have found for free from the talented sellers on TpT.

And If It’s Not Free, It’s Probably Worth It!

If I have a very specific need and I can’t find something free, I can usually find something inexpensive and worth every penny. I really would rather not pay for resources, of course, but then I stopped and realized that I never hesitate to spend $5 here or there for office supplies, stickers, or prizes for school. So, why not pay a couple of bucks for something that is actually designed to help my students learn something? And it is fun to know that a purchase on Teachers Pay Teachers will help support a teacher.

So…Who’s Paying Whom?

Ultimately, I’m less than a year into using TpT, yet I have downloaded a ton of resources and spent a pretty tiny amount of money. For all these years, I stayed away from Teachers Pay Teachers, when all along I didn’t realize it was like a dollar store / FREE store for teaching resources. Almost every time I visit the site, I get paid in freebies, which leads me to wonder – are the sellers or buyers really winning out here? Or is it just a fantastic partnership for everybody involved?

Check It Out Today!

If you haven’t joined yet, go for it! Joining is free and as I mentioned, there is a ton of great stuff that is just waiting for you, no matter what subject you teach! I am so happy that I joined, and I loved TpT so much that I opened my own store there a few months after making my first purchase.

So…all that free stuff we were talking about? As soon as you sign up, feel free to start your own personal free download spree with some of my free products!

Enjoy!