Teachers Pay Teachers often feels like one big team (Go Team!), so we thought it would be fun to learn about some of the TpT stores that are run by Teacher-Author teams that are hard at work making fantastic resources. You might say they’re “teeming with ideas.” 😉
TpT Sister Teams
Is there a magic formula?
There are many ways to make a team and these ladies have found success in teaming up with their sisters. The sisters who run Curriculum Castle say, “We began our TpT store a little over a year ago and decided to collaborate because it would give us a chance to work together, which is an opportunity we otherwise would not have. We use our individual strengths to divide up the different sections. Then we try to get together a couple times a week to go over the ideas we have each come up with on our own. We always make sure we are together to finalize and upload the product to ensure we’re both proud of everything that’s going up in our store.”
What about dividing up the responsibilities?
You don’t have to live in the same town or even state. One of Second Story Window’s proprietors says, “We always dreamed of teaching together someday, but that just wasn’t going to happen. I moved away from my sister for five years but through the business we really felt connected. When we created homework for the whole school year, one of us did the math pages and the other did the ELA pages. When we started our monthly vocabulary units that tie in with books, we just divided the books in half and each did two of the book units completely. My sister does a lot of the big blog posts, but I do all our social media, update the product listings, and answer Q&As.”
TpT Co–Teacher Teams
What prompted the partnership?
Another great example of “Partner Stores” is coworker stores. The team behind Wise Guys says, “We’re great friends, and at the time were both 5th grade teachers in the same district and school. We felt like we were creating meaningful and exciting activities for students and we thought we’d give TpT a try. My partner does much of the product design and takes care of comments/feedback and our CD sales. I do the marketing part: Facebook, Pinterest, our blog, Twitter, etc. We both create products.”
Are there benefits to teaming up?
The Fun Factory team were teaching partners before they opened their TpT store — they worked so well together, it just made sense. They say, “What one doesn’t think of the other one does.” And JK Curriculum Connection’s Jackie and Kylene think it’s “because ‘two heads are better than one’ — we find we make a product better by bouncing ideas back and forth (and back and forth and back and forth).”
Astute Hoot’s partnership (pictured above in both cartoon and picture) consists of 2nd grade teacher Jessica Murphy, special education teacher Jennifer Zoglman, and Jennifer’s sister and award winning graphic designer, Tina Rataj.
Teamwork has really paid off for this trio. Speaking about their product, Reading Intervention Essentials Bundle they say, “Using our intervention plan and accompanying tools, the most reluctant readers blossomed into motivated, enthusiastic learners; they begged to meet new animals and asked for extra graphic organizers for home. Our students made the greatest reading gains in the entire school district! They went from needing intensive reading intervention to meeting end-of-year benchmark requirements as measured by the DIBELS assessments.”
Married TpT Teams
The Teacher Team enjoys the time they spend working on TpT products together. Their thoughts? “My wife is elementary and I am high school science. We have products for both in our store and create them individually. It helps to have two sets of eyes on things to proofread, etc. Our combined store works well for us. We tend to think along the same lines about many things and bounce ideas off each other all the time. Because we do have separate interests, this is a fun thing to do together, and make some extra money too.”
And how about the language powerhouse team Night–light Lessons? One does the French resources and the other the Spanish resources. To top it off, they teach at the same school!
TpT “Partner” Blogs
Okay okay, I might be stretching the term, however, these folks support one another and work as a team to help improve their teaching and promote their TpT stores. Here’s a small sampling:
- Blog Hoppin’ is a great example of a collaborative TpT Teacher-Author blog
- Rachelle and Natalie co-author the blog What the Teacher Wants and they have separate TpT stores.
- First Grade Buddies is both a team TpT store and a team blog!
- ATUE! All Things Upper Elementary! is a collaborative blog of upper elementary TpT Teacher-Authors
TpT is a great place to be whether you’re a buyer, a store run by one, or a partner/team store. Keep spreading the word — it helps the whole team.
