Posts
The BTC Blog is now a Word Press blog. Why? It is easier to manage and allows for more flexibility! It is now being hosted on my website which makes life easier rather than having to go to another site to add updates.
Please go to the new blog and update your subscription/feed. All posts here will be deleted but have been transferred to the Word Press Blog. Thanks!
www.busyteacherscafe.com/blog
Some of you may have noticed that the Penpal Exchange had been down for a few days. I just switched webhosts and had to figure out how to move the database from the old host to the new host. Thanks to the people at www.downtownhost.com (my new webhost), they were able to fix the problem and get the Penpal Exchange running again.
Sorry for any inconvenience it might have caused!
One of the many buzz words in education these past few years has been Differentiated Instruction. Teachers are now expected to differentiate their instruction to meet the needs of diverse learners. This can be done in various ways, including small group instruction and one-to-one instruction.
I've added a new page to the recommended books section on differentiated instruction. It can be found here:
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/books/differentiated.htm
NEW PRODUCT:
Phonics games are now available! They are simple to make.....print, cut, and paste to poster board. The picture below is a sample poster game. To see the new phonics games, click here. More games will be added in the next few weeks.
The 2008 - 2009 school calendars are now ready and available for download. Just click on each month, add your text, and print!
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/printables/forms.htm
Bookmarks for back to school --- includes "Welcome to Our Class" and "Welcome to First Grade (Second Grade, etc.)".
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/school/back2school.htm (Click on Back to School Links)
Alphabet Book has been added and the alphabet tiles have been revised.
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/printables/languagearts.htm
There is a new page for new teachers who are entering classrooms for the first time. This page organizes all the resources new teachers will need -- New Teacher Page.
On a personal note, my summer reading list has been updated! I am a pretty fast reader so I always have a pile of books on hand when I'm finished reading my current pile. Take a look on the side to see my revised summer reading!
In the fall, there will be a few teachers who will be entering the classroom for the first time in their careers and have already asked me to help them setup and organize their classroom. As I was thinking back on how I used to prepare my own classroom, I remembered a great book I used called Classroom in Photographs. It was a great help to me (since I am a visual learner) to be able to see ways that classrooms could be set up.
In my search, I found a new book published by one of my favorite authors, Debbie Diller. Her book, called Spaces & Places: Designing Classrooms for Literacy, shows teachers how to design their classrooms by using photos and diagrams. Now this is my kind of book! The book has just been released and I ordered my copy. This is a great resource for both new and veteran teachers! Go here to read a sample chapter of this new book!
The following pages have been added to BTC:
- Reading Workshop - A basic overview and description of the Reading Workshop.
- Guided Reading - Information on implementing or revising your guided reading instruction.
- Balanced Literacy Framework page has been updated with more links and resources!
- Units of Study for Reading and Writing Workshop
- Writing Workshop Page
I don't know about you, but I'm am thrilled to finally be on summer vacation!! It has been a hectic year for me working, graduating, and trying to keep the site updated and running.
One of the things I really look forward to is catching up on my reading. A stack of books await me these next few weeks.
For those of you who are interested in doing some summer reading yourself, I've added some recommended books (see side panel). These are books I am currently reading or have read and found enjoyable or helpful. Some are about literacy or education whereas others are for pure enjoyment.
Hope you find something worth reading!
Many have asked about the penpal exchange!
Well, it's now back in a new platform! The Penpal Exchange is available as a forum for a few reasons:
- I was unable to keep up with the sheer number of submissions in the old Penpal Exchange. Now, individual teachers can place their own submissions in grade appropriate forums.
- Others can reply to teachers via the forum without having to give out their email addresses. This protects users from exposing their email to junk mail and other unsolicited emails.
- Teachers can update their information once they have found a class to correspond with, helping keep the Penpal Exchange up to date.
The following pages have been updated:
Class Site of the Month
Educational Site of the Month
June Resource Page is now available. New files have been added:
- Two certificates of promotion
- Memory Book
Enjoy!
New pages have been added to the site!
- Listening Center and Language Arts Center pages have been added to the Literacy Center section.
- Balanced Literacy Framework page discusses one way to structure literacy instruction in the classroom.
- Fairy Tale Packet
- Literacy #2 File Folder Games
- Guided Reading page
- How to Find Child's Reading Level
By popular demand, some of the monthly calendars have been updated for 2008 - 2009 school year. Also, July has been added as well.
The remaining months will be added by the end of the summer.
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/printables/forms.htm
Well, I finally got my laptop back and reorganized the site. Busy Teacher's Cafe now has a new look! Many changes have been made ... many pages and sections were merged with others. A few pages were eliminated. There may be a few broken links here and there but it will be fixed soon!
If you have a hard time finding what you're looking for, use the search boxes at the bottom of the pages.
Hope you like the new face of BTC!
Due to a problem with my computer, there will no updates for a few weeks as it gets repaired. Access to another computer will be limited.
If you order a packet and have problems with downloads or opening it, I will be limited as to how much I will be able to help until my computer is functional again.
I will try to access my email as often as possible but please be patient if I do not get back to you soon. Thanks!
Many people have emailed me about the planners so I am happy to announce that they are finally available! A few weeks ago I had sent out an email and many people responded with ideas to incorporate in the planners. Many of the ideas are now integrated into the planners!!
There are many choices to choose from:
- Two cover choices
- Monthly or Monthly/Weekly Views
- 6x10 or 8x11 versions
New forms have been added to the forms page of the free worksheets section:
- Classroom Jobs (clipart and photo versions)
- Monthly newsletter template in English and in Spanish
A weekly newsletter template in English and Spanish will be added in a few days!
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The monthly/weekly planners will be available soon from BTC. Before they are completed, I would like to welcome comments or suggestions that will help enhance the planners. If there are any items you would like to see added to the planners, please let me know and I will take them into consideration. You can email me at teacher@busyteacherscafe.com. Thank you!!!
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/units/tired_words.htm
Also available is the Tired Words Packet, printables that go with your lessons on tired words (also known as dead words).
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/packets/literacy/tiredwords.htm
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NEW PAGES:
- Spring Theme Page has been added
- April Resource Page is now available
Some people have encountered issues with downloading or opening the packets they ordered from BTC. Only a few packets were having these problems and I think I have solved the problem (which started when they moved my site to a new server).
If you do decide to order from BTC, please read the information page carefully since many problems can be avoided that way. It is extremely important that your email account be able to accept emails from Busy Teacher's Cafe.
If there are any problems, please email me and I will respond within 24-48 hours.
I've also received a notice from my webhost that the mail service is having problems sending and receiving emails so my emails are not coming in or going out. Please email me again if you have not received a response.
Thanks!
In case you can't find it:
March Resource Page
March Educational Site of the Month
These two pages and more can always be found at http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/sitesofthemonth.htm.
Theme 2 Packet is almost done and will be available for purchase this weekend!
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Here is an interesting video from TeacherTube. It truly makes you think about teaching in a different way.......
This information will explain what an RSS feed is and how to get one. Since I have a Google account, I use the Google Reader as my RSS tool. Look online for free RSS tools if you do not have one.
What are RSS feeds?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. An RSS "feed" is the website's way of alerting subscribers that the website has been updated. It feeds subscribers the latest updates that have occurred on the web site.
How do I subscribe to an RSS feed?
When you find an RSS feed you'd like to subscribe to, you must first have a tool that can read these RSS feeds. These tools are often referred to as "News Aggregators", "RSS Readers" or "News Readers". There are an abundance of these tools online that are free.
Why would I need RSS? What is the advantage?
RSS feeds allow you be notified when a web site has been updated. Normally, you would have to proactively visit the site as updates occur. You just subscribe and watch the notifications roll into your news aggregator. Also, RSS is unspammable because you control your subscriptions. The site owner never has your contact info.
UPDATED WORKSHEETS SECTIONS: New pages have been added to the worksheet section.
Writing Section:
- Writing Workshop Management Pages
- Biography Pages
- Character Map
- Story Map
- Story Sequence Map
Scroll down to the bottom of this blog until you see Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) and then follow the directions.
Although I do have a mailing list, I have found that RSS feeds are another great way to get updates out to the users of my website. I'm not too technically adept at creating my own RSS feed yet, so I decided to use Blogger instead. From now on, all updates usually found on the home page will be posted here instead. This is an experiment to see if this method will work.
Thanks for reading!!!