Chapter 2: Choose a niche for your TpT store
(back to Build a TpT Store)
In this chapter, find a starting point that works for you.
1. What grade levels would you like to serve?
- Which grade’s curriculum do you know best?
- Which grade’s kids do you understand best?
- Which grade’s teachers do you understand best?
If you have taught many grade levels, choose the one/two you love the most.
Focus on creating a collection of resources that serves a grade level really well. So that a teacher who loves your 1st grade resource can be delighted that you have more!
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2. Choose subjects/topics/learning strategies/types of learners/classroom needs that you would like to create for.
Do you know the needs of a particular category of learners really, really well? You can make their world a better place by ensuring teachers have access to the resources that you have created, because you made them with love, and because you have deep and intimate knowledge of what the students need.
Examples of subjects/topics/learning strategies/types of learners/classroom needs to focus on
- Math and Literacy
- Science
- STEM
- Art
- Music
- SLP
- ESL
- Autism
- Early Intervention
- Counseling/Psychology
- SEL/Mental Health/Character Education
- Classroom Management/Behavior Incentives/Classroom Decorations
- … and more, you know best!
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3. What do you want to shine for? Choose your identity/conviction.
- Did you want to develop young minds?
- Build resilience into kids when they are young so they can break the poverty cycle?
- Develop the human spirit?
- Make learning fun so that your students will grow up to become lifelong learners?
- Passion for kids with specific needs
- Do you just want to see kids smile?
- Spend your days having the privilege to contribute to others?
- Differentiation done well, so that there is true equity for all learners.
What’s yours? What made you become a teacher? How will that conviction influence the resources that you create?
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4. What were hits in your classroom? What were your classroom lifesavers?
What were the best learning moments you had in your classroom? What made them so great? How can you capture that in the resources you create?
What were the hardest moments? What are the biggest struggles for you? What are the biggest struggles for your students? What can you create to help with that?
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Chapter 2 Action Steps
- Write down the grade level(s) that you will be creating for.
- Write down the subjects/topics/learning strategies/types of learners/classroom needs that you would like to focus on.
- Write down your convictions and paste a note somewhere to remind yourself.
- Check your teaching contract, because some school districts have clauses in the contracts stating that any teaching resource that the teacher creates while under employment belongs to the school, or something like that. That would mean you can’t sell the resources you create while working at the school.
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