I have been a Teacher/Author on Teachers Pay Teachers for a few years now. I started after my school started a big push for improving literacy and using the Super Six. It helped me soooo much! I found resources that I could use in my classroom, the very next day. I knew that the resources have been tested on actual students and worked. It was like finding a beautiful little secret treasure trove of wonderful resources that I had immediate access to – a-maz-ing!
I have long been a purchaser of education products and have used several sites, book sellers and websites. I found that each of these resource sites had their benefits, but not everything I needed was in one place. Once stumbling upon Teachers Pay Teachers, it was like finding a one stop shop for anything and everything that I might ever need! I was hooked.
Firstly, this is not a sponsored post, I am not making any money from writing this post – these are all my opinions, from my own experience.
At first, when I came across the site I was amazed at the number of resources available, and at a great price. There were resources for what I was looking for – Literacy/Super Six, music resources, art resources, clip art and more. I felt like a kid in a candy store. I didn’t know what to purchase or download for free first.
In the beginning, I was nervous about signing up, it asked for my credit card details, and this was a little scary. I thought, maybe these resources that are “free” have a catch and a cost to them somehow – but they didn’t! The resources that said they were free, did not cost a cent. The only cost was in using up my internet data as well as paper and printing costs on my end. We all know that teachers aren’t afraid to print something at the drop of a hat, so that really felt like no cast at all.
After I had had a lot of fun downloading and finding free resources, which were of high quality, and very useful, I started to purchase paid resources. I have always found that the resources have been helpful, and the best part is, once you have paid for the resource, it is ready for immediate access. That was a game changer for me. It meant that I was not wasting time trying to plan ahead purchasing books that might come in the mail in a couple of weeks. To date, I have purchased 674 products! I can’t believe it is that many, please don’t tell my husband! But. They are all tax deductable, so it’s a win in my book. Amazingly, I have only 136 resources that I have downloaded for free. I think that this has simply been because I have a few favourite sellers now, and I tend to buy products from them and I am not looking for anything new and free, I am happy to pay for the resources.
I like that when I purchase from a teacher/author on TPT that my money is going to a hardworking individual and not some big corporate conglomerate who has no real connection to the actual needs of teachers, right now.
Soon after joining up as a buyer, I became a Teacher/Author myself. This has been a fantastic and enlightening trip. I realised quite early on that there were very few products for Music students in the Years 5-9 group. And, as I had always created my own classroom resources, it was a natural progression to make my own classroom tested resources available to the global community of TPT.
If you are thinking of joining the TPT community as a purchaser, just do it, you won’t lose. Well, you might – you will get lost in searching and finding fantastic resources that will save you time, inspire you to become a better teacher, and in the end, you will save time and effort because the hard work has been done for you. Once you become a TPT member, you can “follow” your favourite sellers, and each time they make a new product you will get a notification. There is also the great feature of being able to put resources that you like onto your wishlist, this way when you are ready to purchase, or when there is a site wide sale you can add them to your cart – I have found this feature a great time and $$$ saver.
You can check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store here.
Here are few useful links for you to start your TPT journey
Teachers Pay Teachers – About Page
Teachers Pay Teachers – Sign Up Page
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Until next time
Happy Teaching
Julia from Jooya