Where do I get good clip art for TPT products?

TPT (and etsy) Clip Artists

I know as a TPT creator, it's hard to know where to get good clip art.  Just wanted to share a list of my favorite clip artists!  I use their work all the time.  Make sure to give credit on your credits page, even if it's purchased-it's just the right thing to do!

3am teacher- I use her frames mostly but her clip art is pretty darn cute too.
Jasons Online Classroom- Lots of different types of clip art
Caras Creative Playground- Love her frames.

Jen Jones of Hello Literacy- Beautiful fonts.  Buy the license.  You will use it over and over!

Creative Clips by Krista Wallden- TON of clip art.  Go crazy!

Graphics by the Pond- Love her frames and cute clip art.

Melonheadz by Nikki-  Who doesn't know her work?  Once you see it, it'll ring a bell.

Blue Bees- great for primary TPT creators.

Whimsy Clips - Lots of holiday clip art.

educlips- Lots of clip art, multi-cultural kids.

PrettyGrafikDesign -on Etsy.  Love her papers and art.  

GraphicsforKids- Also on etsy, Found cute science themed art here.

This is not an exhaustive list by any means. There are so many amazing artists out there.  I hope this helps get you started.

TPT ***Google Plus ***Facebook
Bloglovin ***Twitter ***Pinterest

MMI: Red Ribbon Week

Monday Made It

Getting Ready for Red Ribbon Week

Linking with 4th Grade Frolics!

It's time for Red Ribbon Week!  Red Ribbon Week is an alcohol, tobacco and violence prevention awareness campaign observed annually in October.  It happens in classrooms all over the US.  This year, fourth grade decided to use Nightmare before Christmas as a vehicle to get the message across.  

Here are our doors:

 Oogie Boogie

 Sally

Jack and Zero

We all decorated our doors in a different character from the movie.  We are going to have the kids write messages #drugsareanightmare.

What are you doing for Red Ribbon Week?

TPT ***Google Plus ***Facebook
Bloglovin ***Twitter ***Pinterest

IMWAYR: The Day The Crayons Quit

Monday Linky from Teach Mentor Texts and Unleashing Readers!

The Day the Crayons Quit 

by Drew Daywalt

Cute story.  It's about the day the crayons quit (duh).  They quit because they were sick and tired of being pigeonholed and always being used for the same things.  Each color wrote him a letter and explained exactly why they were upset.

Well, Duncan was sad.  He wanted to color but he also wanted his crayons to be happy.  So he colored another picture but used the colors in different ways...a pink dinosaur, an orange whale etc.

Well!  Duncan got an A for coloring and an A+ for creativity.  A win-win for everyone!

It's a cute picture book and kids love it.  Makes them think out of the box! Appropriate for grades Pre-K to 2 but older ones will enjoy it too.  



TPT ***Google Plus ***Facebook
Bloglovin ***Twitter ***Pinterest

Best tips to help those struggling readers

Best tips to help those struggling readers

When I have at-risk conferences, I don't like to talk about deficits.  I prefer to talk about ways to work with your kids.  Here's what I discuss with my parents.

First and foremost, read every day.  There is no substitute for spending quality time with the adults you love.  Besides that, talk about the reading.  The common core has shifted from basic who, what, when, where questions to how and why questions.  When discussing the text with your child, make sure to ask questions like "Why do you think the character did that?"  and "How do you know...?"  Beyond that, ask for text evidence.  When they answer a question, ask them to point out evidence in the text that proves their point.

Secondly, make sure there are a lot of materials they can read around the house.  It should be a combination of stories and nonfiction texts.  Magazines and newspapers qualify.  Kids love nonfiction about animals.  Amazon is quick and easy and of course, the library is free!

Luckily, nowadays, we have a plethora of web sites and apps that can also help. Here are some I recommend:

• Storybird.com  This is a great web site that curates art.  Basically, artists provide their art for kids to use when writing stories.  The art sparks ideas for the writing.  Kids can also read stories by others.  Accounts are created and you do not need an email address.
• en.childrenslibrary.org/ offers a digital library.  There are a ton of books to read.
• scholastic.com has both a kids section and a parents section.  The parents section has a lot of tips and tricks.  It can hone in on specific grade levels. The kids section has a lot of games and contests and is based on the current , most popular kid lit.
• Learning Ally has a lot of audiobooks available for readers.  If a kid reads a book enough times, they start to connect the text to the sounds.
• Voicedream is an app that will take any text and turn it into speech.  You can use it on an iPad or Android device. It has synchronized highlighting too!
• Dragon dictation  This app is great for those kids who are struggling to get their ideas down because the spelling/writing gets in the way. They say what they want and the app turns it into text. And it's free!
• Blio is another app ereader.  It's great because it will highlight words as it is reading them.  Super helpful.

I hope you find these apps useful for new readers or struggling readers.

TPT ***Google Plus ***Facebook
Bloglovin ***Twitter ***Pinterest