The Teacher Toolbox

October was another HUGE month for adrianbruce.com. 82 979 individuals made 124 869 visits to my site viewing 480 456 pages. They downloaded 46 973 Word resources and 16 953 Acrobat files. Widen those doors people, it’s time to truck my head through. hehehehe

The most popular downloads were -

1. Printable Snakes & Ladders – this is a blank template for making reading games.
2. Change 3 - a printable word card game for learning about long vowel sounds.
3. 4 in a Row - a printable word game that kids love. Includes a blank template.
4. 3d Shape Game - a printable concentration game that focuses on the properties of 3d shapes.
5. Reciprocal Reading Cue Cards – my modifed teaching prompt cards for this powerful comprehension strategy.
6. ‘Here’ Question stems – for the 3 Level Guide Reading Strategy
7. Place Value Charts - (I really should finish the decimals charts)
8. The T Puzzle - a problem solving activity but please stop asking for the answer. I’d hate to rob you of the ‘A-ha’ feeling
9. Square Pyramid Net – I’m sure this was all the Uni students out on prac
10. Phonics Posters – A Few Things for Word Walls
11. Symmetry Webquest – A Visual Reference for Learning About Symmetry

I’m thinking that this translates to a lot of time saved by teachers and a fair amount of learning of skills on the part of students.

Yesterday I found out several of my ‘Four in a Row’ games had broken links to the Word versions and the blank template. After a few choice words pointed at Dreamweaver I’m thinking it’s all fixed now

Sorry to those 645 people who couldn’t find the game they were after last month.

Syllabification Game

Blank Game Template

cheers

Adrian

This Capital Letter Matching Game is one of the first I ever made. Tonight I discovered there were several ‘techo’ things wrong with the webpage so now it should be up again and working fine for all to download.

The game is for four or five players and has several common uses of CAPITAL LETTERS in the chicken’s speech bubble.

Capital Letter Matching Game

Have fun cutting out the pieces

Adrian

PS If you find this game useful feel free to email the link to your friends

Over the years my reading games site has grown to be rather large but I must admit I have concentrated on creating content rather than spending a little time on navigation.

I’ve added a search function – links to all other sections of the website – the ability to buy me a beer or 17 for a job well done – shortcuts to tag the site on social bookmarking sites – links to my blog – My Amazon Wishlist (a big thankyou to the person who is sending me David Warlick’s book on Classroom Blogging) – the ability to join my newsletter group – and the ‘tell a friend’ applet.

Over the next week I plan to work on a ‘Comprehension Strategy’ section to the site and a ‘Recommended Books’ section. I believe that phonics is only one part of a very good reading program so I’m looking at expanding the site in that direction.

cheers

Adrian

In the last 7 days the site has had 52,653 page views. Given these numbers I sometimes have to be reminded myself that each of the resources downloaded has its own story.

Here are two such stories that came through today.

SRI LANKA

Your site is incredible.I’m a teacher of English as wel as a mother of
2 kids. Your site will be very useful to me. I found your site today I
loved it from the very moment I entered it.The most important thing is
it’s free. Actually I can’t afford to spend on resources as I’m not
that rich and don’t have a credit card.I thank you very much and I hope
that you would continue your good work. May God Bless you.

& also from Sri Lanka

Dear Adrian,
I’m a teacher of English and everyday I surf internet for reading
resources. I came across your site today and it’s wonderful.I don’t know
what words I have to use to thank you.THANK YOU VERY MUCH.I hope that you
ould continue the good work.

Sort of keeps it real for us in the West

cheers

Adrian B

Hi All,

I provide all my games as a pdf files for all the people in the world that don’t have access to Word.
I also provide all my reading games in Word so that if people wish to modify them to match the needs of their learners. The up side of this is that people who modify my reading games can email them to me and I can upload them to the site for everyone to use.

The software I use to convert the Word to pdf is free and it is called primo PDF feel free to check it out. It really is easy to use and does everything I need.

Cheers

Adrian