Buncee Blog

Whether you’ve got a little summer left, or a lot – chances are that your thoughts are already turning to setting up your classroom for the new year (unless you’re one of our friends in the Southern hemisphere – our apologies for adding to all of the back to school conversation). No matter what your timetable is, Buncee’s got you covered!

For the past two weeks, we’ve been encouraging teachers to get ready for the new year with Buncee by suggesting ways to use their creative energy. Let’s take a look at the ways you can make this back-to-school season the best yet with Buncee:

Back-To-School Webinars

New to Buncee, or searching for back-to-school inspiration? We’ve got your back. Each week from August 9th – September 15th, we’ll be hosting a “Back To School With Buncee” webinar. Sign up here and join a Buncee team member for this live training to learn all about Buncee and how you can start the year off on a creative and fun foot!

On August 24th at 7 PM EST, join Teacher- Librarian Shannon Miller for a live Hangouts On Air, “Back To School In Your Library With Buncee!” Check out what will be covered and sign up for the webinar here.

Summer Recap

You and your students can share you summer adventures and summer reading using Buncee! Create a scrapbook documenting the fun you had and present it to the class or check your students work in the Classroom Dashboard.

 All About Me’s & School Year Goals

Have students create an All About Me Buncee, or have them document their goals for the 2017-2018 school year. Students can present their creations to the class, or you can view them through the Classroom Dashboard. Students can use voice or audio recording to explain their Buncee creation.

Class Signage

This is a pretty obvious strength in the Buncee world! It’s a snap to put together words and pictures in Buncee. When you have, you can make all kinds of signs – library signage, centers signage, reminders for your students, class rules, and inspirational quotes.

Signs by (Clockwise from top left) Teresa Rizzo, Amy Storer, Courtney Reaves, Katelyn Callahan, Me, and Stacy Johnson

Meet the Teacher

Whether it’s the day before school, as it was in my district, or you wait until the third Tuesday in the school year, Back-to-School events can be stressful for both parents and teachers! You work so hard to make your classroom into the perfect balance of comfortable and academic. There’s so much hustle on your part, but your parents come loaded with positive expectations, and sometimes negative baggage from a previous experience. The number one thing you want is to have your classroom needs communicated to those parents. Meanwhile, many parents are coming to you with so many questions. Put some of that anxiety to bed by using Buncee to prep! You can begin with an invitation to parents – start off on the right foot by making everyone feel welcomed! You can send any Buncee out as an invitation, and it will actually track the RSVPs for you. (Click here to learn more about sending out Back to School invitations from Shannon Miller!)

Once you’ve got the parents in your classroom, Buncee is a great tool to introduce yourself, your expectations and your policies, and to throw out a wishlist or class supply list. You can make your Buncee multipage, you can use video, and to make it easy for parents to refer back, you can embed the Buncee’s web address in a QR code!

Classroom Design

Has your classroom layout gotten a bit stale for you in recent years? The ease of moving shapes and pictures around on the Buncee Canvas makes for a great way to design your classroom, as well as to store virtual swatches so you can keep in mind the look or theme that you’re trying to implement. In addition to the pictures I’m sharing, you should really check out Teresa Rizzo’s classroom overhaul Buncee!

Classroom layouts and ideas by (clockwise, from top) by Katrina Worthington, Nicholas Clayton, and Jess Boyce

Energize Your Class Newsletter

Ditch the tired old emails – use Buncee to add sound, pictures, and video to your class newsletter. Use the clip and stitch function to include student reflection in the weekly newsletter process. And then, send the emails out through your Buncee account, and you’ll be able to see which parents have seen the newsletter, and which have not.

Newsletter Template by Michelle Howell

Prepping for Reading and Study!

With Buncee, there are so many reading activities floating out there that we could devote a whole course to using Buncee for reading. During the past couple of weeks, we’ve shared reading logs, student journals, open ended student reading activities, and interactive notebooks.

Reading Activity Log by Sara Frater

In Summation

I’m just scratching the surface, people. If you hop over to Twitter and search the hashtag, #BunceeSchoolSupplies, or look in the Buncee Educator’s Facebook group, you’re going to see brilliant ideas from your fellow teachers. There are so many great ideas in this wonderful PLN!

Lastly – now that you’re ready for the kids to come charging into your classroom, might I suggest a game of BunceeDoodle? It’s a great ice breaker activity to play with your kids, and familiarize them with their new Buncee accounts. You can learn the basics here, and we’ll throw in a few ideas for free:

Buncee Doodle activities by Marie Arturi