In most places around the country, traditional back to school season starts in either August or September. So right now is the time to start preparing products to sell for this back to school market—and this is an evergreen market. These are products that will sell all year around
You can sell to teachers, parents whose children attend school or parents who homeschool their children. All of these are profitable markets and need a continuing supply of products.
Typically, when we think of school products to sell we think of teacher or student planners. Yes, those are helpful, but there are many more products you can sell geared to the education market. Here are 30 products you can create, market and make money selling.
Keep in mind who you want to sell to. If you are selling to teachers, make it easy to print. This means letter size paper in the US or A4 in other countries. Making signs, decor or other items in sizes that require custom printing will have an impact on sales since teachers like to be able to print off their computer.
You can make poster sizes in a pdf that will print a page in 4 (or more ) parts that can be glued together but in that case you will need to provide instructions to the customer on how to do this.
Start with Basics
1. Paper: Digital paper with designs for school are popular. Think rulers, clocks, school tools, books, a bus, etc. All those designs do well for paper that can be used by teachers to create their own planners, books, posters and signs for the classroom.
2. Clip Art: If you can create clip art or images with school designs, sell as a bundle. These can also be used to decorate other products you sell. And if you create the images, you do not have to worry about selling products with images that have restrictive licenses.
3. Page Borders: Use your paper to make page borders for classroom signs. Teachers create all types of signs and like some design in the border to add some decorative element. You can even add some clip art to the corners to make it more attractive.
Task Cards VS Flash Cards
There is always some confusion about task cards and flash cards. Typically flash cards have a question, problem, shape–something on the front and the answer on the back. So Flash cards are two sided cards. You can make it a card about colors, counting, shapes, or anything depending on the age group you are creating for.
A task card is a job or problem that needs to be solved. The answers are not provided on the card, but usually provided to the teacher on separate paper. However, I have created task cards where the answers are provided as QR codes so older students can check their own work. And I usually provide the QR codes on separate paper so if the teacher wants to make the answers available after some work time that is an option. In that case, the task cards are with QR codes, without QR codes and a separate QR code listing is provided.
When I am selling Task Cards either blank or with content, I sell them as 4 on a page for teacher to save printing. When I am making Task Cards that will be uploaded into a digital format, I use a single card on a page. It improve clarity and it easier to upload.
5. Flash Cards: You can take your blank task cards and put images or text on them for flask cards. You can create flash cards with multiplication problems, flash cards with colors, vegetables, the solar system, animals—any type of flash card to help students learn reading and math are valuable.
6 Classroom Signs: Teachers use signs about mindset, behavior and tips. Examples: Everyone makes mistakes. Never stop trying. Never give up. Raise your hand for help. Return borrowed supplies. Put away supplies. Creating signs for content is valuable as well. Example:
7. Classroom Décor: In addition to signs, teacher typically make bulletin board displays and change them for different months or seasons. A back to school display might include a welcome sign, borders, motivational messages and more. You could add some blank labels(with or without clip art) so students can write their names, goals for the year to other types of messages to add to the board.
8. Worksheets: If you have some background knowledge you can make specific printables for math, science or English. And by background knowledge I don’t mean advanced college degrees. If you have helped a child with their homework, you are probably familiar with the types of printables that teachers use.
Make printables to practice addition, multiplication, division, subtraction or fractions (separate products because the skills are taught in different grades). Products that introduce students to science concepts: different weather – tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes, rain, snow. Rocks and fossils. Reading and Writing concepts: Students need practice writing their letters, recognizing the letters in words and beginning reading.
9. Pennants: Pennants in school colors are popular. If the file is editable, students can add their name. A college theme could be created with having different colleges and school colors for students to choose future colleges and place their name.
10. Seasonal bulletin boards can be decorated with colors of different seasons, feature writing prompts (Halloween: What scares me about starting something new. Christmas: What I am giving for Christmas. Valentines: What I love about school.) Add numbers for teachers to create a math problem for students to solve.
11. Picture Frames: Parents will love this one as well. Make picture frames for the school year with 4 different areas in the frame to display different pictures from the school year. Or create a large frame with 12-13 areas for a picture from each school year.
13. Scrapbook Pages: Use your digital paper and clip art to create digital scrapbook pages or “junk journals”. If you create pages for school scrapbooks, sell in bundles for back to school, school events and holidays. This could be a series of products.
Games and Activities
14. Bingo: We all love bingo. Create a back to school bingo, holiday bingo, letter bingo, vegetable bingo, etc. All types of Bingo activities can promote learning in the classroom.. Here is a puzzle generator that creates bingo cards using symbols, images or just number. You can use text as well for vocabulary activities. Check it out here: BOOK PUBLISHER TOOLS
Or you can use Canva to create Bingo Cards with numbers or text. Consider the age that will be used for the cards. Younger children may need a 3 x 3 card with no free space. And while older children can use the 5 x 5 classic Bingo card, if this is for a classroom activity, that may be too many spaces for winners in a class period. And don’t have more problems than will fill a card.
15. Puzzles: Logic puzzles, mazes, number puzzles are used in the classroom. Keep the level appropriate for the age group. Here is a Christmas Sudoku puzzle that would be fun for the holiday.
16. Stickers: Create stickers for rewards for students. Kids love stickers. You can create washi tape, stickers with encouragement, success stickers or just images (stars, thumbs up). Sell them as individual images for use in digital assignments, and also in a full sticker sheet which can be printed on a sticky sheet and cut out.
One Page Printables
17. Get to Know You Printables: Teachers want to know something about students the first day. Create a one-page for students to add their own information for teachers. Include things like name, if they have siblings, favorite food, favorite song, sports, etc.
18. Sign in Sheets: Teachers have many events where parents/students attend and need sign in sheets. These events can be back to school night, parent conferences, tutoring, workshops and more.
19. Assignment Trackers: Weekly trackers help students stay focused. Create different sections for subjects and boxes for the students to write assignments and the due date. This could be either a one page printable or two sided. Yes, this could also be a monthly tracker, but the beauty of a weekly tracker is that is creates a sustainable habit.
20. Other Trackers: Speaking of tracking. Teachers track books read, participation points received, class jobs, standards achieved, etc. All types of trackers are used in a classroom and by homeschool moms. Homeschool moms need to track standards covered, assignments completed, and lesson objectives coverd.
21. Class Calendars: You can either create a calendar for the teacher to post assignments or create a calendar for students to note events and assignments. A standard page size works file because many teachers use online platforms and a page could be uploaded to a platform and then shared with students. And homeschool moms need calendars to keep track of lessons, check-ins, tests and progress reports.
22. Schedules: Perfect for homeschool moms. They can create a schedule of lessons for their kids and lessons to stay on task with the curriculum they are using.
23: Lists: All types of lists. Supply lists to send home to parents. List of supplies needed by teacher. Anything that a teacher or homeschool mom would need can be listed on a supply checklist.
24. Coloring Pages: Elementary students use a lot of coloring pages, especially those with letters or numbers. Create a color page for each letter of the alphabet. Sell as a bundle or add the individual letter to other writing or letter worksheets to create sets.
25. Notes Home: Teacher send home notes to parents of good news about class events, class participation, student progress (if it’s not good news, it may get lost, lol). Create a page with 2 notes on each page. The pages can be printed filled in easily and sent home with students. Parents like to receive good news. They can also be used to note upcoming events. If students are older, they can write the notes themselves—and if you want to know they are received, add a place for a parent signature.
26. Newsletters: Some teachers like to make a class newsletter to advise of events, need for volunteers, ask for supplies, promote class projects, etc. make a newsletter template perhaps different styles and put the template in PowerPoint so it could be edited by teacher.
27. Phone Log: Teacher need a log of calls to parents. Date, name of person spoken to, phone number used as well as summary of discussion. This becomes important if there is a problem in class and documentation is needed. And if the teacher has an online messaging service, they still need to track those messages sent.
Print On Demand (POD) Items
28. T-Shirts: Great back to school item as well as an item for the end of the year. Students who are graduating high school would love a well designed T-Shirt and a student who is starting preschool could have a shirt with “Future High School Graduate” and a year.
28. Cups, Mugs, Bottles: Older students usually carry bottles with water to school. And everyone knows that teachers get mugs or cups as gifts. So these are great options to create designs to sell.
30. Bags, Backpacks, Goodie Bags: There are numerous products in this category. Younger students typically use backpacks that can be personalized with a great design for school. Make your design editable so a name can be added. Older students carry tote bags and teachers use goodie bags for different times of the year. Paper goodie bags are used at the holidays, back to school and end of year.
Whew, that was a lot of things but you don’t need to create them ALL. Pick one or two that resonate with you and sound like fun. If you enjoy creating coloring pages, make them alphabetical. If you enjoy working in Carva, make some calendars, lists and trackers. Whatever you do with joy, tweak for the back to school market.
And don’t forget school products once the back to school market has slightly cooled. All teachers rely on products at all holidays to keep kids motivated and engaged. So that Christmas or Thanksgiving coloring page can be geared to elementary kids with some added story about celebrations. Your trackers or lists can be refashioned into a countdown to a holiday.
For more ideas on creating printables to sell, check out this blog post: CREATING WALL ART TO SELL ON ETSY
I hope this has been helpful and you have gained a lot of ideas for products that you can create to sell for the Back to School season. You can sell these products on ETSY , Shopify or Teachers Pay Teachers.