Online Marketplace for Teachers

Teachers Pay Teachers is a website begun by a former New York City public school teacher in 2006. His idea was to create an open marketplace similar to eBay in which educators could offer other educators resources that worked for them in the classroom.

And has the site ever grown! There are now over 5700 items listed under “Reading” alone! Some of the items are free (over 3500 available), but most of the others are for sale for a minimal price: 50 cents, one dollar, two dollars, etc. All are instant downloads, meaning that once you pay for it, you can save it directly to your computer.

What types of resources will you find there? You’ll find tips, forms, lesson plans, study guides, worksheets, handouts, unit studies, PowerPoint presentations, tests and exams, projects — all designed by teachers. The site has also expanded to include used textbooks and other resources that the seller ships directly to the buyer.

It’s free to join and unlike eBay, free to post; TeachersPayTeachers only earns a commission when an item sells. So if you’re looking for a new approach, idea, strategy, or lesson, check out this site. After all, who knows better what works in the classroom but teachers themselves?

Guest Blogger: Samantha Bell

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Community Service Ideas for Students: Letter Writing

While the words “community service” tend to bring up warm feelings of goodwill towards our neighbors, it’s sometimes difficult to know where to begin, especially when the goal is to get children to think beyond themselves. However, there are simple things that you can do to encourage students to begin thinking of others in their community. One of these is letter writing.

Find a time every week or two that can be used expressly for writing letters. You can explain to the students how to write a personal letter, then help them write their rough drafts and edit them. Finally, have them write a final copy in their best handwriting.

Who can they write to? There are many people who would like to receive letters, including:

Soldiers overseas:

You can find websites that provide information for sending a letter to a soldier who is deployed overseas. Try AMillionThanks.org and ForgottenSoldiers.org

Children in hospitals:

Children who are undergoing medical treatment are often encouraged when they receive mail from others, even those they don’t know. Visit MakeAChildSmile.com for more information.

Residents of nursing homes:

Check with your local nursing home to see if they have an Adopt a Grandparent program, or if they would help you match an adult with each child. If possible, take a field trip to the nursing home with the students to meet the adults. You may even want to take photos of them together. Then, use the letter-writing time for the students to send their “adopted grandparents” the photo, letters, cards, and drawings. .

No matter who they write to, make sure your students know that although they may not receive replies, their letters do make a difference and help brighten someone’s day — truly a good service, and so easy to do.

Guest Post: Samantha Bell
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkim1/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

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Important Changes to MyAwardMaker

Dear Friends,

Last week I received a letter that ‘unmade’ my day. Written on official letterhead and signed by the CEO of a company, the letter firmly but politely stated that the use of the MyAwardMaker.com domain name was infringing on their trademark and that I must stop using it immediately!

I was floored!! I had no idea when I registered the domain name two years ago that another website existed with a similar mark. After several sleepless nights of agonizing, researching and phoning attorney friends, I realized it was in my best interest to comply with the request and move on! I have never been one for confrontation and I realized that if I were in their shoes I would probably have done the same. Note to self (and all other budding entrepreneurs out there!) – do a trademark search before buying a domain name. It will save you much pain in the long run!

Well, this is not the end of the world - it is fixable.  This is really an opportunity to rebuild the site, do the things I should have done in the first place and, with your support, get over this ‘bump’ as quickly as possible.

There’s a lot that needs to be done. I need to find a new name (in progress), change all the graphics and text on the website, and change the watermark on hundreds of certificates. There are also a few technical things that need to be done but I hope to make the transition as smooth as possible, with minimal impact to you. In the meantime I’m just asking for you to be patient. If you find the site down, please return quickly. If you write to me about a free certificate template and don’t get a response, I’m not ignoring you (I actually do read every single one of the emails that come in), but I may take slightly longer to respond.

I appreciate all the wonderful emails that you send and I hope to keep the site running as long as I can. Your support and kind words keep me going and for this I thank each and every one of you.

Here’s to celebrating bigger and better days ahead!

Thanks very much for your understanding and patience.

Suki

Update  September 30, 2009
After a long list of  suggestions, MyAwardMaker finally has a new name - “Certificate Street.com”! This seemed to receive the highest votes from our Market Research team (a.k.a friends and family!)

You’ll notice the new logo on the main website and while we’re making the transition to the new domain name all our files will still be accessible via www.MyAwardMaker.com

Sorry if this causes any confusion - we’re doing our best to make this easy for everyone!

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Classroom Bulletin Board Idea - “About Me”

If you have an extra bulletin board in your room, consider putting up an About Me Board. It’s a good way to get to know your students and for them to get to know each other.

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Grandparents Day - Celebrating Some Very Special People

“Everyone needs to have access both to grandparents and grandchildren in order to be a full human being. ~Margaret Mead”

What would the world be without the warm and unconditional love of grandparents?

I was fortunate to have my grandfather in my life all the way through my teenage and early adult years. While we lived oceans apart and I did not get to see him as often as I wished I could have, his love for me in his letters was always evident and his support, unwavering.

When I left home and moved to Florida, I started volunteering at a Center here, teaching computers and basic internet skills to Seniors. I had some very interesting students, many of whom were in their late 80’s and who always had interesting stories to tell. I’m not sure if they learned as much from me as I learned from them!

One particular student, a feisty 85-year old New Yorker, began to hound me to go out with her for coffee. Every week I saw her she would bark “when are we going for coffee?!” She was persistent! I eventually did and from that first ‘date’ a wonderfully rich relationship blossomed.

Esta was not always in the best of moods, especially after she had to move out of her own apartment into an assisted living facility, but she was always ready with a quip or two. Whenever she knew my husband I were coming over, she would dress up to the nines, and make sure she had her signature flower in her hair. If I told her how amazing she looked she would say “a little powder and paint, makes a girl just what she ain’t!”

I once visited her wearing a necklace with a Chinese symbol on it that my girlfriend had given me in college. She asked me what it meant and I told her it stood for ‘wealth’. “Wealth? Bah!” she snapped. “Wealth is nothing!” Easy for you to say, I thought, my college debt always on my head. “Health! That’s what you should be wearing! Health!” I learned how true this was much later.

I remember asking both Esta and my grandfather what they would like when I visited and even though they never got to meet each other, their answer was always the same - “nothing.” It struck me eventually that what they yearned for the most was company and connection, not flowers or chocolate (which they both loved!). Whether it was me sitting next to my grandfather as he played Swing the Mood on the piano or singing a World War II ditty with Esta as she struggled to remember the words, time seemed to stop as we all got lost in the music.

Esta passed away peacefully in her sleep last year as did my grandfather a few months later…There are days when I’ll suddenly hear the strains of “Swing the Mood” or Fred Astaire singing “Heaven, I’m in heaven” and feel an ache somewhere. But then as I listen to the music, I always end up smiling, remembering something they each said and for that one moment, nothing else seems to matter.

Listen / Watch : Swing the Mood - Glenn Miller Orchestra

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Free Tennis Certificates

Even though the weather is starting to cool down in the US, I thought I’d highlight some of the tennis certificate templates that we created over the past couple of months. These templates are designed to work for both singles and doubles as well as mixed doubles and kids.

To see all of our tennis templates, simply enter the word “tennis” in the search box at the top of every on our website.

I also just wanted to also share this very sweet email that I received from Stephanie E. after she used some of the tennis templates:

“Fabulous!!! I handed out about 40 awards last night to a ladies doubles league that I participate in and all of the certificates from your site where a BIG HIT!! Everyone loved them. I told everyone about your site because they thought that I had worked so hard on them …..My quotes and titles where clever but the colors you use and designs are wonderful…..”

Thank you, Stephanie! Happy to help!

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Free Certificates - Why Only on a Wednesday?

School is in session - I can tell that by the “shape” of our site traffic when I look at the stats! I love patterns (as you can tell from some of the borders of the certificates) and I like looking for them in things around me (yes, I’m a geek!). I thought I’d share with our fans and readers, the patterns I see when I log in to my Google Analytics dashboard.

During the holidays I see a more jagged up and down pattern over the course of a week. However as soon as school is in session again, the up and down turns into nice smooth curves with the highest traffic being in the middle of the week and the lowest traffic happening during the weekends.

The days that people tend to search for free certificates tend to be on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and sometimes Thursdays. The lowest day is Sunday. Doesn’t anyone want to celebrate stuff on the weekend?

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Kids Craft Idea - Making a Beaded Necklace

A fun craft at a party for children of any age are beaded necklaces. Even very young children (ages 2 1/2 and up) enjoy this activity.

Supplies

Yarn or heavy string cut into 32″ lengths

Plastic beads (also called pony beads) in various colors

Beads with letters on them

Masking tape

Small containers to hold the beads

Large wooden beads (optional)

Permanent marker (optional)

To set up, place the beads in small containers. You can separate them by color to make it easier for your guests to find the ones they want.

Also, the ends of the strings need to be prepared so they don’t fray, especially if you are using yarn. You can either wrap the end tightly with a small piece of masking tape or melt the end of the string with a match. Tie a knot in one end of the string, or, if the knot won’t stay or isn’t big enough, tie a bead at one end.

Now you’re ready to begin! Allow children to choose the beads they want to include on their necklace and show them how to string the beads. You can explain how to create patterns with the colors (i.e. pink, white, green, pink, white, green), or they might choose all the same color. If letter beads are available, you can show them how to spell out their names or even a fun phrase (i.e. I-LOVE-CATS). If you’re celebrating a holiday, you might choose to use holiday colors, such as red, white, and pink for Valentine’s Day or green, red, and white for Christmas.

When the necklace is complete, simply tie the two ends together in a knot. The necklace should be big enough to slip over the child’s head.

Variation:

If you have children at the party who don’t want to make a necklace, encourage them to make a beaded snake instead. Have them fill the string with beads, ending with a large wooden bead. You can tie off the last bead and cut off the excess string, leaving enough for its “tongue,” or you could just tie off the last bead and leave the string so the child can pull the snake along. Use a fine-tipped permanent marker, such as a sharpie, to draw the snake’s eyes on either side of the wooden bead.

Guest Blog - Samantha Bell
Image - http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturalmom/ / CC BY 2.0

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Chess Certificates

We’ve been getting a lot of requests for specific types of certificates and while I’m sorry that we can’t always create all of them, please know that they do go on a list and are considered. Here’s one that we created after we received several emails asking for a chess themed certificate.

You can download the chess award certificate template for free by clicking here. Enjoy!

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How to Make a Friendship Banner

Here’s a fun craft for a birthday party or other celebration for a girl of any age. To create this banner, you’ll need:

- A large piece of felt

- Smaller pieces of felt in various colors (often sold in 8″ x 8″ squares)

- Fine-tipped markers

- Cookie cutters in a variety of shapes

- White glue or hot glue and glue guns

- Scissors

- Sequins, pom-poms, glitter, googly eyes, and other craft supplies

- Fabric paint or permanent markers

Before you begin, prepare the background of your banner. To do this, take the large piece of felt and fold over the top of the felt about 2″ inches. Sew or hot glue the end in place, creating an opening to run a rod through later.

To start, provide each guest and the guest of honor with a smaller square of felt. Allow the guests to choose their colors.

Next, have each guest choose a cookie cutter and place it on the felt. With a fine-tipped marker, trace around the cookie cutter and draw the shape on the felt. Cut out the shape with scissors.

Now it’s time to get creative! Have each guest decorate their shapes using sequins, poms-poms, glitter, and other craft items. Glue the items on with white glue or hot glue.

When everyone has completed their felt designs, have them glue them to the banner. Then have them write their names next to their designs, either in fabric paint or permanent marker. You can purchase either of these in a variety of colors.

After the glue has dried, present it to the guest of honor to take home and hang on her wall. You’ve not only made a banner together — you’ve made a memory!

Post & image courtesy of our guest blogger Samantha Bell over at Art-Made-Easy - Thanks, Samantha!

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