Creating Previews for Teachers Pay Teachers

How to create an animated preview for your Teacher Pay Teachers products or resources. These are now used by some Teacher Pay Teacher sellers on their Pinterest sites and now I discovered I can upload these to my Teacher Pay Teacher products as well.

I first discovered this from tptschool.com which also demonated how to create the files as well. But I thought I'd break it down into an easier to follow way.

Using the website gifmaker.me, simple follow the instructions below.


Instructions in How to Create an Animated Preview of Your Products

1.  Go to Upload Images and uploade your jpeg files. I have uploaded up to 20 with success.

2. You can view how your animated will look like in the top right hand side of the screen.

3.  Once you are happy with this, click on the button, 'Create GIF Animation'.

4.  After a short while the download will be ready. You will see a link which says 'View the GIF or Download the GIF. As I can already see what it will look like I tend to press download.

5. Should you wish to change the size and background of the images click, 'Crop, resize, optimize images.'

6. Once this file is downloaded to your computer you can click into your Teachers Pay Teachers product you wish to animate.

7. Fill in the information as you normally would, but under preview upload the gif file you created.

8. Press 'Submit' and view your product page.

9. View the preview to see if it works okay.

Note: I have come across a couple of times where it failed to animate, but once I completed the steps again, I found it worked.

I have also uploaded these to Pinterest in my teaching boards as well.


Check out my two examples below, I think it's such a cool idea. Thanks tptschool.com.

Oral Language Task Cards from Fun Creatives TPT site

My Science Borders from Fun Creatives TPT site.

Oral Language-Sticks

The importance of oral language for children. After many years working with young children and even older children I still have a sense of sadness when I come across children who can't express their wants and needs or even recount a fun experience with confidence.

I believe it is very important for children to have a sense of confidence in themselves when using oral language. Often it is girls who hold back and allow the same children to answers questions and make statements on whatever line or topic we are dealing with at the time. I can say it is probably sometimes teachers fault who allow or cater to boys speech more so thank girls. I am probably guilty of doing just that. However I am very conscious of it and steer away from sexist or racist pedegogy of teaching.

Oral Language Sticks
I use these when I am in certain classes where I know there are particular children who dominate the conversation. I use cards or sticks with children's names on them. I let the class know that I am going to pull out a name from my box and that child when then have to answer my questions or make a satement. That means the dominating child will have to allow others to speak AND require more reluctant children to build confidence in their speech when it is expected of them. Yes it's hard to immplement and yes you will get resistence, but in the long run you will see positive results.

I first saw this done on an English television documentary where a consultant was asked to change the dynamics of the school. The very confident students were quite angry that they had to take a backseat and within a couple of months they actually didn't like the change of answering questions, so they took out their names from their teachers jars. The teachers worked this out and the documentary crew asked the girls why they did what they did. They said that they knew they couldn't answer the questions when their names where pulled out of the jars, so it was easier to take their names out. Or in another words, they didn't want to be shown up for not knowing answers when in the past they often knew the answers and so were more than confident at answering questions.

If as a teacher you try this in your class, ensure you check out the number of sticks match the number of children in your class. Oh and by the way this works very well with children, teens and adults.

Speaking and Listening

Tips and Tricks for Oral Language or Speaking and Listening Sessions 

Hello lovely teachers, one of my favorite things to do in the morning with students in elementary school ages is to have an oral language session or speaking and listening activities.


Tried and True

Generally I start off with student's offering to share their news and having them stand in-front of the class and share. Once they are finished, I ask the rest of the class to ask three open ended questions. Even getting to open ended questioning is difficult depending on the age. Generally they are the ones who come up with their topic, unless I give them one such as; "tell us about a day you went to someone's birthday."

As a substitute teacher I get a unique perspective in how different teachers operate their oral language sessions. Most operate the typical way I have explain as above. However there are different takes on the same kind of session. The younger the students, the more directed, the older the more students are able to share using more complex sentences and asking more interesting, opening ended questions.



The talking Stick

For me as a teacher who has had her class and as a now substitute teacher I really like this concept. Originally this native American tradition was used in councils. The speaker holds the stick and only they are allowed to talk without anyone asking questions or commenting. This is great for the class as a whole to speak should they choose. Keep in mind some students like to 'over' talk, so keep them at bay with giving them a one minute time frame. Allow those who do not wish to speak to pass the stick on to the next person. If you have time you can have students ask each other questions about their news. The stick can comprise of anything really, from a toy, to a prop to a stick. I also really like this speaking and Listening activity due to the inclusive nature.

Speaking and Listening prompts

If you are teacher who would rather have most of the sessions done for you, you can come up with prompt cards which help student's talk about the topic at hand. You can write your own prompts on colored paper, laminate and cut them out. Bind with rubber bands and pop into a little box or zipper plastic bag.

Students can select a prompt from the cards without looking or select one which resonates with them. They can then speak for one minute about their topic. The prompt is a simple guide to help students speak from an anchor point, instead of coming up with the same story each time, as some students sometimes tend to do.

As an alternative, you can students choose a card randomly and share in pairs. If need be ask the students to volunteer in sharing their news with the rest of the class. 

I created a bundle of 108 speaking and listening prompts which students are likely to be familiar with. Topics range from; Talk about your favorite takeaway food, or Talk about your favorite television programe or game or app. The cards are mounted on 11 sheets, ready to be printed, laminated, cut and bundled. There are also 5 colored sheets for the teacher to write thier own prompts. This is a real time save and fun to offer the children in your class.

This bundle is best used with grades 1,2, and 3, New Zealand Year 1,2,3,4.

These speaking and listening cards are bright and colorful, ready to be used with young students, they will enjoy using them.

Thank Mel Himiona from Fun Creatives at TPT