Teaching Inspirations 2017

I've been a teacher my entire adult life, and I laugh to think how much money I have spent from my own pockets in my nearly 30 year career. I've also been a single mom, so I know what it's like to stretch every penny. As I embark on my adventure of selling resources online, I've done a lot of research online and have become active in several forums for sellers. There seems to be a lot of discussion about site licenses and sellers are understandably concerned about illicit sharing of products they offer for sale. Here are my thoughts on how I want to approach this for my store. * I put my watermark (not my logo, but my website name -teachinginspirations.com) on every page of every product I sell. I try to make it as least distracting as possible, while still being visible. I also make sure it is in a spot that is hard to simply cut off before copies are made. I want people to know who created the product. It is the best advertisement I can think of for future sale

TIME. We all get exactly the same amount, but sometimes I wonder how others seem to be able to do so much more in a day than I seem to get done. I have so much I want to accomplish, and was even foolish enough to believe that when I retired from public schools a few years ago, I would have all the time I needed to write and pursue photography. HA! Once people realize you don't "work", suddenly you're the go-to person for errands, babysitting, chatting, etc. I finally threw up my hands and found another job teaching outside of public schools which helped for a while, but once again my writing and freelancing went on the back burner. Then my life took another turn. This last year has been so erratic with the illness of both parents, my mom's passing and taking time off from work to be a stay-at-home care giver. I'm in desperate need of re-organizing my schedule and getting a handle on how I spend my time. I know I need a schedule and routine, but with caring f

As the resource teacher at a detention center, my case load is always overflowing, so despite the fact that I love keeping the boards in our halls fresh and motivational, time is my enemy. As my budget allows, I am investing in fabric and vinyl boards that are durable and reusable. They hold up well in a very challenging educational setting. Because there are no letters to pick at, the boards stay intact longer and can be stored to use again in a few months which makes it worth spending a few of my own dollars to make our halls brighter. With ten board in our halls, I can't afford to only use vinyl or fabric, so I still use a lot of my traditional methods. Below are three boards I got up in our halls this week. Caught a 50% sale on Zazzle, so I took the opportunity to go ahead and get this banner printed. It was a big hit with the residents, teachers, and staff. The dog belongs to my neighbor, but he is a camera hound. Here is a link to the banner which you can customize.

Short on time? Looking for a durable, reusable, and easy to put up board for your middle or high school classroom? Check out my boards at teachinginspirations.com One of the most frustrating aspects of developing attractive bulletin boards is finding just the right letters to make the board special. Yes, most schools do offer die-cut machines, but you are limited to just a few fonts and sizes. I work in a youth detention facility, so my resources are limited and there are no die-cut machines unless I go to the local school system's resource center. One technique I use is to print my captions from a word document in an extra-large font. Here are the steps I use: Step 1:  I open a new document and type my caption using the default font and size. This way I can see my typing and make any edits before I super-size the letters. Step 2: In my top menu, I click on select all. This will highlight every letter in my caption so that the steps I do after this will appl