The Top Tools I Use in my Online Teaching Classroom!

This is a list of products that I’ve used to improve my online teaching classroom! I work at home by teaching English to students in China for VIPKID!

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I have been teaching English online for a year and a half now! In that time, I changed from a former preschool teacher who was scared to death of the camera to an early riser who sings and dances and cheers in front of the camera at six in the morning. The internet is full of tips and tricks to help improve your setup and your performance. I’ve tried plenty of them and some have worked while others didn’t stick. In this post, I will talk about the evolution of my background, props, and equipment. I’ve found a comfortable balance in the way I teach, and I hope it helps you figure out what will work for you too!

Background

I teach in half of my living room currently. In the beginning, I thumb-tacked up a big piece of fabric behind me and found felt alphabet letters to stick on it at Target. Super simple! It got me through a few months. But I LOVED the idea of having a magnetic background, like Teacher Jennifer Anderson. Her Youtube videos are amazing! Definitely check them out if you haven’t yet. She has been deemed the “2D Prop Queen” and has an awesome Facebook group which has a huge collection of free printable props and rewards to use. It is a goldmine of a resource!

So I found a metal oil drip pan (I know, I didn’t know what that even was before this!) for about $11 at Walmart. They’ve since stopped carrying it for some reason, but here is a similar one on Amazon:

I used Command strips to attach it to my wall (I think I used the 16 pound Command strips, just to be safe) and it has never fallen down! I cut a white bedsheet in half and covered it with that. I’ve seen other teachers spray paint them or use wrapping paper too. I used binder clips to clip the sheet to the edges (no specific reason, I just happened to have about a gazillion of them on hand… planner girl problems). Now I can put magnets on anything and use it to decorate my background! Which brings me to my next topic, props!

Props

I’ve accumulated quite a few props. Before I even got the job, I was buying cute little odds and ends that “I might need for a class one day”. But one obsession that carried over from my seven years of teaching preschool was my love of laminating and making things to use in the classroom. This might be another reason why I absolutely LOVE Jennifer Anderson’s huge collection of magnetic 2D props. You can print anything you need, laminate it, stick a magnet on it, and it hardly takes up any room! So I followed her example and started printing and laminating ALL THE THINGS. I have a Fellowes brand laminator that my husband bought me as a birthday present maybe five years ago, and it’s still going strong, even after I dropped it on my foot once! (Luckily my foot is still working too!) I don’t think they make my model of laminator anymore, but you can’t go wrong with a Scotch brand, like this one:

I’ve also tried a few different laminate pouch brands and Scotch is still my favorite. If you want to save money, put this Scotch laminate pouch listing on your wish list and keep an eye on the price. Sometimes it dips down to around $15-18, which is an amazing price for 200 pouches!

Magnets are my next favorite thing. I started out with the usual magnet “tape” that comes in a roll and you just cut pieces off and stick it to things. It’s extremely weak and the pieces have to be big to really hold anything up. I bought regular disk shaped black magnets after that. They worked, but they had a lot of dust on them and it got on everything as you used them. Once again, Jennifer Anderson comes to the rescue and recommends neodymium magnets! They’re tiny, clean, and are extremely strong! They’re super simple to attach to your laminated props with packing tape. This is the best deal that I’ve found for them so far and I’ve purchased this set twice already:

Just a friendly reminder, that these are extremely strong and tiny, so keep them away from pets and children! It would be so easy for them to swallow one and you would never know.

Another prop that I use constantly is my white board and dry erase markers. They come in so handy if you need to write out a sentence to help a student along or if you need to do a quick doodle to explain something. But what helps even MORE are retractable markers with no caps to fumble with! I first found an off brand of them at Walmart during back to school season, and I loved them, but they were super pigmented and stained the board easily. Expo brand is always the way to go! You can find a cheap white board and retractable markers here:

And of course, (shameless plug ahead) I can’t use my markers without my adorable Dino and unicorn crocheted erasers! I made these and also sell them in my Etsy shop! Follow my Etsy shop and my Instagram to find out next time I have some ready to go!

One more prop that I did not expect to use as much as I do are my giant googly eyes! I get the best surprised giggles when I hold them up and say, “What do you SEE?!”. They love it! I found my set at Michael’s during Halloween season when I first started teaching, but this set is very similar and just as fun:

Lighting

Lighting has been tricky, especially since I switched from teaching while sitting to teaching while standing. Originally, I had two desk lamps on either side of my laptop pointed at me. When I started teaching standing up and had my laptop raised up on a little coffee table on top of my dining room table (it works and I am so not spending hundreds of dollars on these fancy “standing desks” that do the same thing!), the desk lamps weren’t tall enough to work for that. Then I bought this “spotlight” lamp that I angled upwards towards where the ceiling meets the wall above me, so it would bounce off and light me. It worked okay but both options absolutely killed my eyes after 5 or 6 classes in a row. I found a floor lamp with five flexible heads on it and I LOVE it! Set it up in front of where you teach and spread the lamp heads out like a peacock, so the light bounces off all the surfaces and it gives you bright, even light all around! Here is where you can find this lamp:

Headphones

One reason I absolutely love teaching online is that I never have to stress about technical issues. My husband is a computer and network nerd who fixes all of the things for a living, so I basically come with my own IT support! He is not one to skimp on equipment either. When I first started teaching, I just borrowed his Razer brand gaming headset. They were amazing quality and never gave me a problem, and definitely worth the $90-100 they cost. But my husband and I both got tired of having to go grab them from wherever the other left them, and he found me these adorable yet high quality headphones on Amazon. I got them in pink and they come with cat ears! My students love them! I also just found out that they also come in orange, which is awesome for VIPKID teachers! They are about half the price of the Razer brand too, and they work just as well. They’ve also never had any problems.

There you have it! These are the things that have stuck around and proved their worth through every class I teach. I am not a minimalist teacher by any means, and I could do a whole other blog post on my other props that I have stashed and what my setup consists of (that’s not a bad idea…). Tell me what you think? Would these work for you? Have you found something better? Leave me a comment or send me a message on Instagram! I love to share ideas! Thanks so much for reading!