teachers pay teachers – Page 2 – Adventure. Create. Relate

March 2022 Goals

March 1, 2022Posted in Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachersTagged Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachers2 Comments

I am usually a big fan of February – it is my birthday month and all – but this year it has been troublesome in many ways, so I am not sad to see it go. I am all about moving on to March this year – bring it on! Before I can really go forward, though, I need to look back an assess how I really did in February. So, here is my recap of my February goals:

At least one: Adventure Date, Create Date, and Family Game Night – this is one of the few that I did, in fact, accomplish. And we had a great time!
Use SEO to edit current Outschool classes to increase enrollment – I started this and have edited my flex classes. I have gotten one enrollment since doing it. I clearly need to do some more with my other classes, so I am going to extend this one to March.
Add 10 new products to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store – because I was so on it last month, I did hit 30 products this month, so this is a yes if you look at where I wanted my shop to be.
Create 6 blog posts, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, and Pinterest pins – I had 4 blog posts, but then I had 9 Instagram posts, 11 Facebook posts, and 50 Pinterest pins. So I’m going to say yes for this one. As you can see above, I also started a calendar for my posts, although I completely ignored it for the most part after putting it together.
Make dinner 4 times a week – I am going to be completely honest. Last month was rough. If I had to guess, I would say I made dinner 2 times a week on average. This is a no.
Go on 4 hikes – The weather really didn’t cooperate – between rain and ice we lost this month for hiking.
Walk 3 times a week and lift weights 2 times a week – I think I did at least 1 walk each week. Not great progress here.
Log food and workouts on My Fitness Pal – I was on a really great roll for logging and then we hit the second week of this month and things got rough. I am starting again today.
Work on photography and previews for my TpT products – I did not get to organize a space for this project, so it is moving to March.
Write 2 new Outschool classes including one escape room type class – I did not write any new classes, but I did write an escape room for my Vocabulary and R Sound Awareness Classes. So I am going with 50% on this one.

I am actually pleasantly surprised as I look through this list. February felt out of my control for a lot of reasons, but I still managed to accomplish some good stuff. March is going to involve the first few college visits for my Charlotte – I am in denial that we are at this stage, but she will be 17 this month! There are definitely quite a few things I am looking forward to – and some things I am not. Both of my grandmothers had colon cancer, so I get my first colonoscopy this year. Over Spring Break – yay what fun! But, I firmly believe that preventative testing is super important, so I am doing my part. Other goals for March include:

At least one: Adventure Date, Create Date, and Family Game Night.
Use SEO to edit current Outschool classes to increase enrollment.
Add 10 new products to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.
Create 6 blog posts, 25 Instagram posts, 25 Facebook posts, and 30 Pinterest pins.
Make dinner 4 times a week.
Go on 6 hikes.
Walk 3 times a week and lift weights 2 times a week.
Log food and workouts on My Fitness Pal.
Work on photography and previews for my TpT products.
Write 4 new Outschool language classes including one escape room type class.

I am sure that you have noticed that this list is eerily similar to last month’s list – there are a few little tweaks. Some of that is just consistent goals, some of that is things I didn’t do last month, some of that is stubbornly wanting to get it caught up this month. LOL.

How did you do on your February goals? What goals do you have for March? Let me know in the comments so we can cheer each other on. 🙂

February 2022 Goals

February 2, 2022Posted in Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachers, UncategorizedTagged Goals, outschool, TeacherspayTeachersLeave a comment

It is inexplicably the first of February – how did we get here so fast? It doesn’t seem possible, but here we are. Anyway, it is time to recap my January 2022 goals and look at what I want to accomplish for this month. I am actually really pleasantly surprised by what I was able to accomplish last month – not all of my goals, but lots of solid progress.

At least one: Adventure Date, Create Date, and Family Game Night – Yes! We did all of this!
Write a 1:1 Phonics class on Outschool – Yup, in fact, I also made this 1:1 Confident Speakers class and this Scavenger Hunt Show-and-Tell class.
Add 10 new products to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store – Another yes! In fact, I added 15! which brings me up to 25 products.
Create 6 blog posts, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, and Pinterest pins – I did 5 blog posts, but I also did 24 Instagram posts, 27 Facebook posts, and 17 Pinterest pins. I’m going to count this as accomplished.
Make dinner 4 times a week – I did this 3/4 weeks – we had a pretty major family emergency when my daughter totaled her car this month (she is doing okay, no worries), so I am also pleased with this.
Go on 4 hikes – Only made it out 3 times, but with the family emergency, it just wasn’t a priority.
Walk at least 3 times a week – I logged 15 walks, so I am going to count this as done.
Log food and workouts on My Fitness Pal – I logged everyday starting January 3rd and I am down 4.8 pounds so far.
Record videos for Crafty Phonics – Letter R Club flex class – I did this and I feel very proud of them – just waiting on some learners for that class now.
Use my planner as a journal every morning and evening – I love my Rocketbook Panda Planner and I did use it everyday!

It feels really good to have done so well in so many areas. I am really looking forward to seeing how this month goes since it will be pretty busy. I hope that I have now put systems in place to keep things going in the right direction even when I have more going on. For this month, I have a lot of the same goals, but some variations.

At least one: Adventure Date, Create Date, and Family Game Night.
Use SEO to edit current Outschool classes to increase enrollment.
Add 10 new products to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.
Create 6 blog posts, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, and Pinterest pins.
Make dinner 4 times a week.
Go on 4 hikes.
Walk 3 times a week and lift weights 2 times a week.
Log food and workouts on My Fitness Pal.
Work on photography and previews for my TpT products.
Write 2 new Outschool classes including one escape room type class.

I am feeling really excited to start working on some new things this month. I have a lot to learn about SEO, product photography, and escape rooms, but I am really looking forward to learning new things. If you would like to be kept in the loop about my new products and classes, please sign up for my email list here:

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Do you have goals for February 2022? Share them in the comments so we can cheer each other on! We can do this!

Winter Wonderland Game – How to Make a Seasonal Candyland Board

January 6, 2022January 12, 2022Posted in create, games, outschool, teachers pay teachers, UncategorizedTagged articulation, articulation game, create, digital games, game, Goals, language, outschool, speech therapy, teacher games, teachers pay teachersLeave a comment

I don’t know about you, but I love to play board games. You may recall all of our family game nights and trips to game cafes – there’s just something about eating yummy snacks and moving tiny figures around a board. When I started teaching on Outschool, I knew that I wanted to share games with my students, but it took me a while to figure out how that was going to work. I am happy to say that I seem to have cracked part of the code, and I’m here today to share one of my very favorites with you.

I have played many a game of Candyland, so I knew that I wanted to make a game that would play similar but online. Once I got my Canva subscription (which you should run to your computer and do right now if you do any type of designing), I realized I had everything I needed to create a fun game board, spinner, and cards. I am here today to walk you through creating the same type of game – but it doesn’t have to be winter. It could be candy and monster themed for Halloween. It could be a fun spring trip through different flowers. The only limit here is your imagination. Whatever version you are going to make, you will follow a few basic steps.

Step 1: You need to create a fun background for your game board. It should have different terrains and elevations for visual appeal and optimal game play. I chose a winter wonderland with an icy bridge, chilly waterfall, mountains, trees, and some hills.

Step 2: You need to decide where you are going to make the start and where your end goal will be. On this board, I chose to start by the waterfall and then inserted an Ice Palace in the distance to welcome players to the end of the game.

Step 3: It is now time to create a winding path from your starting point to your end goal. I chose to use blue hexagons because they gave me chilly vibes and they meant the path could naturally twist and still interlock.

Step 4: This is my favorite step. This is the part where you get to make 6-7 creative checkpoint areas. These will be the areas of the board that you put on the cards that players will draw throughout the game. They will either be thrilled to skip ahead of everyone else or crushed to have to retrace their steps by moving back. I love to give these spaces personality and really play up how fun they might be to the kids – Don’t eat too many marshmallows in the fort! Be careful, they might be throwing snowballs up ahead! Don’t worry, the Yeti looks scary, but he’s really a big softie. 🙂

Step 5: You have created your areas, now you need to add some sort of marking to the actual spaces that people will go to when they draw those cards. I like to be sure there are 5-7 spaces between the special spaces, but you can make them as close or far apart as you like.

Step 6: Now is the time to make really fun names for all of your special areas. If my students are working on specific sounds, I will try to put them in all of the areas. If I have a mixed group or we are just working on language, I don’t stack sounds as much. This is another really fun step – I love making up names!

Step 7: The last step is also a naming step – you need to name your game. The name here was obvious before I even made the board, but please feel free to be as creative as you can with your name.

That’s it! You have a finished game board! Now you just need a spinner (make a circle like the one below and use a pencil and paperclip to spin) and some special cards (black and white versions are easiest on your printer).

Of course, if you don’t want to reinvent the horse, and if you would like some really nice words lists for L, R, S, and TH sounds, I have already done all of the work and you could just buy this resource in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. It can be found under Winter Wonderland Game with R, L, S, and TH Target Words. I have a few other winter and arctic animal themed games coming really soon and a free SZ Snowman Guess Who Game available as well. I hope you will check it out and click the heart to follow me so you don’t miss any of my new products. You could also join my email list if you want to be the first to know all of my news.

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What was your favorite board game as a kid? What about now? Leave me a note in the comments if you found this helpful or if you have a suggestion for another game I should try to make. I have some others coming soon, but I am always looking for new ideas. Have a winter wonderful day! 🙂

And So It Begins – January 2022 Goals

January 3, 2022January 9, 2022Posted in Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachers, UncategorizedTagged becca davis, Goals, january 2022, outschool, planning, review, teachers pay teachers4 Comments

The beginning of the year always feels so exciting. A fresh new start – like a field of new snow without footprints where we can blaze a new trail. Endless possibilities. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? And also completely terrifying! How do I know I am choosing to focus on the “right” things? What if I choose the wrong goals and I don’t meet them? It can be almost crippling.

This year, I had the privilege of working through a goal setting course by Becca Davis. It was so great because it made me look back before looking forward. I had to process what I thought and felt about last year before looking ahead to the future. It was such a simple thing, but honestly, not something I had ever thought to do before. It really made a BIG difference in how I looked at setting goals for this year. Seriously, I would 100% recommend the course if you are interested in making goals that will actually get you to the life you want to be living. You can see a sneak peek of the course materials below.

I also joined an awesome social selling membership that will include a lot of training and support this year, and I have enjoyed the goal setting things we have done over there, too. An Outschool Facebook group I am a part of is also doing some awesome trainings and reading some great books this year. I am seriously so excited for all the possibilities.

So, what does this all mean for the Blog? It means there will be a monthly goal post where I tell you the goals I have for the coming month and also recap how the previous month went. Being that this is the first goal setting post, I obviously won’t have anything to recap. I can tell you that I met exactly 1 of the many, many goals I tried to make last January. So, there’s nowhere to go but up this year. 🙂

For January 2022 (wow – first time I’ve typed that. It’s so weird!), my goals are:

At least one: Adventure Date, Create Date, and Family Game Night.
Write a 1:1 Phonics class on Outschool.
Add 10 new products to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.
Create 6 blog posts, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, and Pinterest pins.
Make dinner 4 times a week.
Go on 4 hikes.
Walk at least 3 times a week.
Log food and workouts on My Fitness Pal.
Record videos for Crafty Phonics – Letter R Club flex class.
Use my planner as a journal every morning and evening – I love my Rocketbook Panda Planner!

Do you make goals? Do you do it by year? Quarter? Month? What are you working towards this month? Let’s cheer each other on – if you plan it, you can achieve it! Let’s go! 🙂

I would love to stay in touch – please join my email list if you want to follow my adventures for this year.

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Dude! We’re Getting the Band Back Together!

December 24, 2021January 9, 2022Posted in adventure, create, family, fun, Goals, outschool, relate, teachers pay teachersTagged adventure, create, Goals, relate, updateLeave a comment

During this slow down and wait time, we have had some major shifts in our family. We halted our monthly adventure and create dates, we stayed home but definitely also stayed a bit separate. We all have our own areas of the house and we tend to gravitate to them. We have stopped doing many family things unless we are out of town or it is a special occasion. We need to get back to Adventuring, Creating, and Relating to each other more.

At the same time as we have stopped our dates and family nights, I have started 2 new creative endeavors. I am a teacher on Outschool with classes in phonics, crafts, phonemic awareness, confident speaking, and vocabulary. I have thoroughly enjoyed creating games and activities for all of my classes the past 20 months – it has been an amazing creative outlet and adventure in learning new things. This past month, I have taken my creating to another level and opened a Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) shop to sell the materials I have made for my classes. It is a very slow start, but I am really hopeful that this will be another great creative outlet.

What does all of this mean for my blog? Our family (and also our marriage) is definitely ready for some adventure and create dates again – we have done a few new things during this pandemic, but I have not been ready to write about them. It has taken me a long time to be ready to share this part of me again. Looking back at the past 2 years, however, I realized that writing is my way of coping with things, and I have felt a real desire to get back to it. So, my dear friends, I will be back to posting. And, since I have 2 new creative jobs of my own, I will be posting more. The goal will be 3 monthly posts (adventure, create, and relate) and then 1-2 weekly posts (Outschool and TpT shop). It feels good just to be writing this post, so I am certain this is the right decision for me at this time. I hope that it will be a fun and interesting thing for you, as well!

I would love to request that you take a moment to look me up at my two jobs and follow me. If you use my personal link on Outschool as a new family, you can get a $20 credit towards your first class: https://outschool.com/?signup=true&usid=7SKDulCR&utm_campaign=share_invite_link (I am also happy to help anyone interested in teaching on Outschool to apply – my referral code is: 7SKDulCR)

You can find me on TpT at the following link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Sellers-Im-Following/Add/Ae-Speech-And-Language-Services I have a few products added and will be adding a lot more over the next few months. (Right now I am very excited about my Time-Themed Treasure Hunt games for the Vocalic R and R Blend, L, S, and TH sounds – you can find out more about them in my shop.)

I can’t leave you without a little taste of the create, adventure, and relate posts that I wanted to make the past 20 months. I hope you enjoy – let me know below if you want to learn more about any of them. 🙂

We did art with McHarper online for a while.

As I close this post, I want to make 2 promises. First of all, I promise to keep this blog about adventures, creating, and relating. Secondly, I promise to have a fun post about my yearly goals for our family and for my businesses in the next couple of weeks.

If you want to be sure you don’t miss future updates, please join my email list. I have lots of fun things planned for this year and I would love to share them with you!

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