The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs: Renee Heiss - Teacher Talk's Featured Author

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/All-american-Teacher-Tools

Tell us about yourself.

I am a retired High School Child Development teacher. This means I had about 16 high school students and 8 preschool students in my classroom three days a week. It was organized mayhem! Oh, the stories I could tell! I also taught middle school language arts and middle school Family Consumer Sciences.

What is the name of your Teachers Pay Teachers store?
All-American Teacher Tools

What types of products do you sell at Teachers Pay Teachers?
I sell many different products on Teachers Pay Teachers. I have two daughters who didn’t fall far from the apple tree, so I help make resources for them (6^th grade and middle school science teachers) and then post them in my TpT store. That’s why you’ll see an eclectic mix of history, science, language arts, and math, plus some of my own Family Consumer Sciences resources.

What is your favorite free product from your TpT store?
My favorite free product is STEM daily discussion starters, journal prompts, and fillers – Sept because it introduces my year-long collection of daily STEM tidbits that teachers can use in a variety of ways. When I was in the classroom, I liked to post these on the bulletin board by the door and get students thinking about the topic. Each topic is STEM related but each also has a historical component regarding what happened on that day. These topics are appropriate for middle and high school classes. Yes, there are 366 topics – I did them all!

What is your best-selling product from your TpT store?
My best-selling product from my TpT store is Arkansas History PowerPoint – Part I. (There is also a Part II). This is the resource that started me on my TpT road to success. My daughter had temporarily moved to Arkansas (we live in New Jersey!) and had no idea how to teach Arkansas history to the local 4^th graders. Nor did she have time to develop a lesson since she was overwhelmed with other obligations. So, this retired Mama stepped up to the plate and assembled the most important aspects of Arkansas History into two PowerPoint presentations. After she used it, I posted it on TpT and found that others needed the resource as well. I figured if Arkansas teachers wanted this, then teachers in other states might benefit from my efforts. So, those 50 states plus DC have turned into my biggest collective sellers of all time.

What is your favorite product from your TpT store?
My favorite product is an original book I wrote that highlights my father’s life growing up during The Great Depression. Titled Woody’s World, I chronicled his escapades, 90% of which are based on true events. A teacher a few years ago asked if I had a teaching guide. Hmmm… not at the time I didn’t, but I drew upon my Middle School Language Arts experience and cobbled one up for her. This resource is complete 8-week novel unit. The digital book is posted on TpT and paperback copies are available on amazon.com.

What do you like best about The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative and/or Teacher Talk?
The best part of the Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative is the networking that occurs when the member teachers post your resources on their Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and blog pages. It’s a system that works because I’ve seen the income from my resources soar after joining several years ago. Why is that important? Because I have developed a fun philanthropic system. I take about half of my earnings on TpT and plow it back into the requests from teachers at Donor’s Choose to help them achieve their goals. It’s a system that works for me!