TAPPING OUT WITH TiLES

  This year my principal purchased a systematic phonics program called Tapping Out With Tiles.  Her niece had been in the author's classroom the previous year and we were amazed at her reading, writing, and spelling.
   Remember that this is a copyrighted program but I wanted to brag about how well my students are doing with this program. It's actually based on speech therapy.  The big board that the teacher has displayed and the posters that the students have on their desks have consonants on the side and vowels in the middle.  Each spot is labeled for a specific tile.  The red tiles are the consonants.  The yellow tiles are the vowels because they light the way to reading.  You can't read without light.  You keep reminding the students that words must have vowels. The set up this in the beginning is a lot since you have to laminate the teacher tiles and add velcro. Then you have to buy the plastic tiles and write the letters for all the students.  That means you are writing 24 a's for a lesson but we just sit around and chat while we do the next week.  Next year it will be a breeze.
   The letters are introduced slowly.  Usually there are 2 letters introduced.  The letters have a name based on the student's mouth position.  For example p and b are called Pushers because you push out the sounds.  The program even distinguishes between voiced letters that have the Adam's apple vibrating like b and the voiceless letters like p which have air coming out. Keep in mind, I am teaching first grade and they are calling letters pushers and distinguishing between voiced and voiceless. 
  Then comes the meat of the program.  The teacher says echo the word such as sat.  The students echo the word sat.  Then the teacher says fingers up and tappers together.  So the students all put up their hands with their finger pointing to the ceiling.  Tappers together means that the students have their thumb touch their pointer (index) finger.
  Now for the tapping out.  The students tap out the word sat by tapping their index with their thumb and saying /s/.  Then they put their tall finger with their thumb and say /a/. Finally they put their thumb with their ring finger and say /t/.  Now they move their letters to the bottom of the chart called the spelling area as they sound out (tap out) the word. Repeat one more time and ask them to say the word.
   Next you talk about the word and ask to put it in the sentence.  Finally, you write on the word on the whiteboard and Mark it.  For example, sat you will write a curved line and call it a breve.  Students in first grade are using a breve and telling you it is for a short vowel sound.  Pretty impressive.
   Interesting enough after doing a few short vowel sounds, they move to silent e to make long a and long o.  Next they start working on blends.  I'm amazed at how well they do, as they explain that the silent e has magic and can go through one letter.  It pokes the letter and says Mr. A, Mr. A...say your name. AAAA!
   I'll keep you posted on this systematic phonics program based on speech sounds and mouth patterns.  I love the making words with tiles every day.  It is REALLY helping my low students. If you are interested in Tapping Out with Tiles I can send you the author's information since I think that they are still selling it themselves.  I can't copy any of it because of copyright laws but I've heard how moving your hand on your arm has helped struggling readers so I can see why tapping on fingers would really help since it segments the words.  We will keep tapping in first grade...with our fingers and not our toes.

First Day Adventures on Teachers Pay Teachers

First Day on TpT

Welcome to TpT

I thought I would write down notes to jog my memory for the next time and help anyone else who thought…. I could do that!

Well, you can do that but there are a lot of steps first.

First you have to create 1-2 wonderful and engaging activities for TpT.  Why 2?  The first one must be free.

   A few notes about your items.  First, your item shouldn’t be word but should be converted to something else… I chose PDF.  I looked around before I finally got ready to post it and noticed that all the sellers had a cover page. The cover was colorful, had a tile, and a frame.  I struggled with frames.  Remember if you are using someone else’s borders, frames, or clipart, you need to check their copyright use rules.  You can’t just use them or you are breaking copyright laws.  Any hoo… for the free product, I used the border that came with Word… a bit boring for TpT but hey I’m a newbie.  For the other two products, I downloaded font and saved it on my computer.

         I made several different files so I knew where the font, border, and clipart came from and what the person wanted you to do.  Most (but not all) want you to give them credit and have a cute icon for you to add to the last page entitled credits It’s usually called Terms of Use.  Very important apparently you could get kicked off TpT or even fined thousands of dollars.  BE CAREFUL AND GIVE CREDIT. 

I probably spent days downloading free fonts and clipart and how that person wanted credit for their work.  I would go to TpT and type free  clickart, font, border….  After I found something I liked it was a loooong process to get the clickart, font or border.  I started with opening a new folder on my desktop and labeling it the persons name and a quick description like bw borders for black and white borders.  Then I would download it, save the file, click on the blue arrow, click on the most recent download to open it.  As it opened I would click File Move to…, Pull down arrow, find desktop or file I wanted to put it in, Move, and close it with the red arrow.  I had to do that will all the pictures.  Someone smarter than me can probably do the entire group of pictures.  Make sure you also move the terms of use and button for easy reference.  I did one more thing… I saved a word document that listed the different people I had downloaded for quick reference to their names and what was in it.  I figured some day I would have TONS of clipart.

Next go to Paypal before TpT because you will need to set up an account.  Go to www.paypal.com and set up a business account.  As a teacher it will feel real strange.  This is my first day and I may always be at $0 but right now I am considering it my hobby. They needed my email (I didn’t use school’s), my address, a phone number, password with a number, and the last 4 digits of my SSN. Later they will ask in an email to confirm your email.

Now you can go to TpT.  I saw a lot of things on here but I had trouble finding where to add myself as a seller. I chose basic because I don’t know if I will end up selling anything.  Later if it works I will upgrade to Premium to get a higher percentage, but for right now go to basic (free).

       Once you get set up as a seller, look at the top for My TpT.  Hover over the TpT.  It will open up a pull down menu.  Look for SELL.  It will contain many neat things but right now you want to go to DASHBOARD.   This is the main part to go to but later it was neat to see sales detail (0) , product list (I had 3 by the end of the day), product statistics and my store.  I gave the store my first and last name right now.  Don’t know if I should have been cute and said Firsties or All about First Grade but I know some of the BIG sellers just use their name.

   So now it’s time to upload you’re your first product.  Remember that your first product is FREE.  That means you are giving it away so others can see the quality of your work.  You want something good but not something that you have spent weeks on to finish.  Also, I believe there is a limit of 10 pages for the preview.

   For the preview, you will upload your file from your computer.  I had already changed it to a PDF when I did save as.  For the first product because it is free you don’t need a preview.  You will upload your file, give it a name, tell what grades, list 3 key words, tell what subjects, how many pages, it’s free so no cost, and description.  It also needs 4 thumbnails but I just chose the first one and let TpT use my first four pictures.  Now submit.  If it doesn’t submit it means you left something blank.

    When you add your second item, it will be slightly different because this one will be one that you get paid for if someone buys it.  Before you start uploading it, make a preview of it.  If it is multipages.  Keep the cover and a few pages to show what is is like and save as and write PREVIEW.  The only other big difference is the price.  Remember that you don’t get paid 100%.   They take out a percentage and tell you that your minimum is $  .95.    I priced my first one $4 that had 61 pages for the whole year and $1.50 for one that had 30 pages.  I read that it is about $1 for every 10 pages but you have to factor in how long is the person going to use it. If it is one lesson then probably go a bit cheaper.  Also, as  you get well known you can increase your price.  Finally, I have read that it if you price it too low, you won’t make any money because TpT takes a percentage and people will not look at it if it is too low.  Your time is worth money.  Many teachers have the skill to make it but they don’t have the time. 

   So now you have a free and a paid on Teachers Pay Teachers.  You will look at the Dashboard and see your products.  You will take a picture of it and send it to your family.  Wow!! You are published!!  Big accomplishment!! Then you will go to TpT and search for it and it won’t be there.  A big disappointment for me. I didn’t read that it takes about one hour to be live and on TpT.

   So now does the money start rolling in…not quite.

Now it has to go to Pinterest for Marketing.

     On your TpT there is an icon on the left that you can click to put it on pinterest but after reading several blogs they said your picture will be so small no one will pin in so instead copy the link of your website on TpT where you can see it. I had to go to the Dashboard and go to Products and go to VIEW to copy the link.  Now sign into Pinterest.  I have TONS of pins but apparently very few things that I have pinned.  I didn’t know how to pin.  I had to google it.  Look for the PLUS sign.  It said it should be at the top next to my name but mine was on the lower right hand corner.  Click  PIN FROM WEBSITE.  It will be a much better picture.  Add the website that you just copied and below it find a pencil and add it again so that it says it is from TpT.  Now here’s the tricky part that I’m struggling with.  When I wanted to pin it, I thought I could pin my spelling to a spelling board.  NOPE!  You can pin it to your board.  I created a new one called K-2 Activities and Lessons to make it wider than I normally use because I am creating a board.  The idea is to get it on other board called collaboration boards.  I found a few activities that were in the same vein as mind and on the top clicked go to WEBSITE.  The website gave me someone to email to ask if I could collaborate and most said that I need to pin both paid and free in a prescribed ratio.

    Honestly, I liked everything until this point.  How do I get pinned on other people’s boards and they can’t let me pin unless they are following me? So my board has two cute activities by itself and no activity.  I can see why one lady said it takes about a year.  I checked my email, no response to the collaboration…