A selection of 30 FREE clipart sets for back-to-school or year-round use

Here's a selection of FREE clipart sets that you can use to create your resources. I've chosen some sets that are related to the back-to-school season and other sets that can be used throughout the year.

They have not been downloaded a gazillion times YET (as I write this post), so you have the chance of using them before everyone else!

I can say that I'm totally addicted to clipart and I love discovering new artists as much as I love getting new items from my favorite sellers. I have even created a Pinterest board for clipart. Be sure to follow it if you want to be the first to know about a new seller or a new set (if you know me a little, you know I'm always on Pinterest).

Follow Lucy S.'s board Crazy for Clip Art (mostly free sets) on Pinterest.

I believe I'm going to introduce you to some artists you don't know yet, or show you some sets from your favorite artists that you might somehow have missed. Click on the images to check out their pages on Teachers Pay Teachers (note: the clipart set from Educasong can be downloaded from her website).

APPLES

- Apple Dice Clipart Freebie by Teaching in the Tongass

- Free Wild & Crazy Animal Print Apples Clipart Set by Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs

- Back to School Apples Freebie by A Sketchy Guy

- Doodle Apples Freebie Clipart by KB Konnected

- Apple Friends Clipart Freebie by 2 Super Teachers

SCHOOL / SUPPLIES

- Free Clipart: Journal / Notebook by Teacher Karma

- Bookworm clipart freebie by Kinka Art

- Mr. Thompson's Flipchart Board Freebie by Surfer Kids Clipart

- Alphabet Lettered Tiles Freebie by Teachers Resource Force

- Free Glitter Stationery Helpers Clip Art by Teacher's Toolkit

- Free Thumbtack Clipart by Digital Classroom Clipart

- Math Symbols Clip Art Freebie by Kelli Olson

PAPERS, FRAMES & BORDERS

- Scribble Polka Dot Pages by Graphics from the Pond

- Glitter Digi Paper Freebie by A Little Peace of Africa

- Digital Papers Bokeh Textures 4 by Sonya De Hart Design

- Free Simple Glitter Rounded Rectangle Frames / Borders Clipart by Glitter Meets Glue

- Border Hoarder #1 by the Spanglish Señorita

- Free Square Black Frames / Borders by Getting Nerdy with Mel and Gerdy

- Free Mini Starter Kit Papers and Frames by The Enlightened Elephant

- Free Marble Digital Paper Pack by Cara Taylor

- Free Medallion - Text Frames by Catia Dias

READ: Teacher-authors around the world: meet Catia from Portugal!

- Free Page Borders by Lindy du Plessis

READ: Teacher-authors around the world: meet Lindy from South Africa!

MISCELLANEOUS

- Free Cakes by Guilherme José Drawings

- Free Sample Clipart by Image Boutique

- Free Riboons Clip Art by Cherry Workshop

- Free Colorful Happy Stars by The 3am Teacher

- Free Teacher Appreciation Graphic by Educlips

- Free Initial "H" clipart by Illumismart

- Free Bees Clipart by The Lost Teacher NOT FREE ANYMORE. Sorry!

- Free Proper Pencil Position Clipart by Poppydreamz Digital Art

If you have discovered new artists by reading this blog post, be sure to let me know. More importantly, leave the sellers some glowing feedback. I'm sure they'll appreciate it!

If you are one of the fabulous artists mentioned here and, for whatever reason, don't want to be part of this post, let me know. I'll remove the image and links to your store ASAP.

Read: A selection of 20 FREE clipart sets for fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving!

Thank you all clip artists for sharing your beautiful art with us!!!

Have a wonderful week!

10 words that English borrowed from Japanese

In today's post, you'll get to learn that the following ten words, commonly used in English, actually come from Japanese, which I happen to speak a little because my mom is Japanese (so beside the point, but I just had to share).

1. KARAOKE
Whether you like it or not, I'm sure you have already sung your heart out at a karaoke bar or at someone's wedding. I know I have, and I can tell you it wasn't pretty!

Literally, "karaoke" means empty orchestra. We use the word to refer to singing along to a (usually bad) instrumental tune produced by a machine.

If you have read Lisa's interview here, you know this is one of the words she used to mispronounce until she got to live in Japan.

2. ORIGAMI
One of the first books I can remember flipping through was an origami book in Japanese. I couldn't understand any of the words, but the photo instructions were great. I was ecstatic when I finally got to fold my first crane. No, I haven't folded a thousand of them yet.

"Origami" is also pretty literal in meaning. It means "fold paper".

If you'd like to try your hand at a quite challenging and fun piece, watch the following video. It would be great as an art project for older kids.




3. TSUNAMI 
As I'm sure you'll remember, Japan is no stranger to tidal waves. So much so that they have a word to name the kind of gigantic wave often caused by an earthquake.

"Tsu" means harbor and "nami" means wave.

4. HAIKU
This is a Japanese form of poetry. The haiku poems consist of three lines (with 5, 7, and 5 syllables).
Having students compose haiku is a great exercise because they have to be creative and concise. They need to think about what is most important to say and really concentrate on that. Have you ever had your students write haiku?

5. SUDOKU
Sudoku is a shortened word in Japanese. Thankfully, this is the word we have borrowed or would you rather say "suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru"?

This is a kind of number puzzle that, in my opinion, is highly addictive. It also involves a lot of critical thinking and children should benefit from doing them.

If you want to try them yourselves or would like your kids to try sudoku, you can find thousands of free sudoku puzzles to print at Krazydad.

6. BENTO
This is a word originally used to describe single-serving meals that can either be homemade or purchased. The original bento is composed of rice, vegetables, and fish or meat - everything arranged in a bento box.

More recently, bento has been widely used to describe the cute arrangement of food for kids meals. Here's a video if you'd like to see how to prepare your own Hello Kitty bento lunch box:



7. TYCOON
Do you know any powerful and wealthy business person? If so, you know a tycoon.
Literally, tycoon means "great lord" and was used to refer to the shoguns, military leaders in Japan.

8. MANGA and ANIME
Manga refers to the Japanese comics and they're widely popular with teenagers all over the world. Anime refers to Japanese animation movies, such as My Neighbor Totoro.

Anime is an interesting word because it is actually an abbreviated form of "animation", a word borrowed from English by the Japanese. It's quite interesting to realize that English speakers are borrowing back the word.

9.BOKEH 
"Bokeh" is a Japanese word that means "blur" or "haze". In photography, it refers to a light effect that makes things look, well, blurred.
Even if you've never heard the term, I'm pretty sure you've seen it somewhere.

Check out the following set of Bokeh Digital Papers by KristyBear Designs and the FREE Stretch the Sentence resource by Rachel K Tutoring that uses a bokeh paper on the cover. (click on the images to see the resources)

10.KAWAII
I would say that the most appropriate translation for "kawaii" is "cute". However, the word has taken on a much broader sense to describe a whole aesthetics that involves pastel colors, rounded facial and body features in illustrations, cute characters (e.g. baby animals), etc.

And here's something very kawaii to end this post with:

Read: 10 words that English borrowed from Spanish

Read: 10 words that English borrowed from French

Read: 10 words that English borrowed from Portuguese

Read: Teacher-authors around the world

Have a great week! Sayonara!