Site Update: 28th April 2006

The first update after Easter sees over 100 new resources added to the main website (marked with a blue new symbol) and also 54 new images in the photograph section. Full details are below. Thanks to everyone who sent in contributions this week!

My thanks also go to the many teachers who have been sending in feedback on resources (I'm gradually making corrections to errors in resources where this is possible), those people who have been using the forums and everyone who have been supporting the website in other ways. It's really heart warming to know that so many people find this free resource useful.

MATHS: Level Descriptions in Child Speak / Missing Numbers Addition Y1 / Subtracting 10, 11, 12 (Y2) / Area/Perimeter of Compound Shapes Y5&6 / Area of Triangles Y5&6 / Handling Data Y5 T2 U8 d1-4 / Additiona and Subtraction 2 Y5 T2 U10 d1-3 / Addition and Subtraction 1 Y5 T2 U9 d1-3 / Carroll Diagrams (Smart) Y2 / Multiples of 2 (Easiteach) / Multiples of 3 (Easiteach) / Multiples of 4 (Easiteach) / Multiples of 5 (Easiteach) / Multiples of 10 (Easiteach) / Addition Using Partitioning (ppt) / Y6 BODMAS / Number Cards / Y3/4 Optional Test Practice (Activ) / Y3/4 Optional Mental Test Practice (Activ) / Finding Money Totals Y2 (Smart) / Solving Simple Money Problems Y2 (Smart) / Dividing by Sharing Y2 (Smart) / Shapes Position Grid / Y3 T2 U2 d1-5 Addition and Subtraction (Smart) / Y3 T2 d1-5 Addition by Partitioning (Smart) / Y3 T2 d1-5 Fractions (Smart) / Bingo Random Number Generator (Flash / EXE)
ENGLISH: Level Descriptions in Child Speak / Features of Non-Fiction Texts / Books: The Giant's Necklace Questions / Drafting Posters / Should Wild Animals be kept in Zoos? (Smart) / The Belonging Apostrophe / Audience Y4 T2 (Smart) / Audience Y4 T2 Planning / Book Week Treasure Hunt / Reading Record / Prefixes: 'un' & 'dis' cards / Prefixes: 're' & 'mis' cards / Kennings (ppt) / Prefixes ex-, co-, mis-, non- (Smart) / Speech Bubbles to Sentences / Recount Writing Frame / Books: Tom's Midnight Garden Guided Reading Questions / 'ea' Words / 'ee' Words / CVC: _an, _ap, _at, _ed, _en, _et / Persuasive Writing Phrases / Persuasive Writing (Adverbs) / Persuasive Writing Example Letters / Word Start Help Sheet / Key Words Sheet A-Z
SCIENCE: Level Descriptions in Child Speak / KS1 Senses Assembly / Fruit and Vegetables Assembly Presentation / Space Plannign Y5&6 / Animals Planning Y5&6 / Plants Planning Y5&6 / Light and Sound Planning Y5&6 / Forces Planning Y5&6 / Animal Skeletons / Heart Rate Graphs / Changing State (Online Activity Support Sheet) / Solids, Liquids and Gases (Online Activity Support Sheet) / Characteristics of Materials (Online Activity Support Sheet) / Rocks and Soils (Online Activity Support Sheet) / The Heart (Online Activity Support Sheet) / Flowers (Online Activity Support Sheet) / Teeth and Eating (Smart)
HISTORY: Level Descriptions in Child Speak / Egypt (Past and Present) Planning / A Day in the Life...Victorians / Historical Person Research / Life in Tudor Times (ppt)
GEOGRAPHY: Level Description in Child Speak / The River Thames (ppt)
ART: Artist Study: Rousseau Y5&6 / Egyptian Art Y5&6 / Artist Study: Andy Warhol
MUSIC: Level Descriptions in Child Speak / Exploring Pulse Rhythm (ppt)
ICT: Level Descriptions in Child Speak / Creating Tables in Word / Creating Logos in Word
RE: Jesus and his Teachings (ppt)
D&T: Lighting it Up Booklet / Y3 Bridges Planning / Y3 Bridges Resources / Y3 Bridges Assessment Grid
MFL: French: Useful Phrases Wordsearch / French: Colours Wordsearch / French: Q&A Cards / French: Weather Grid / French: Number Match / French: November (Smart) / French: December Advent (Smart) / French: January (Smart) / Bash: French Colours (Flash) / Pairs: French Colours (Flash)
OTHER: Simple Traffic Light (Flash / EXE) / IWB Presentation Labels
PHOTOS: Additions this week... Science: Birds (2), Mammals (2), History: Celts (25), Victorians (25)

The Blobz Guide to Electic Circuits

http://www.andythelwell.com/blobz/
This great little site was a final year university project by Andy Thelwell. The five colourful Flash animated sections take students through everything they need to know about circuits from what makes them work to understanding circuit diagrams. Each section contains pages of information about the topic, a short activity and a quiz.

Pied Piper Planning

Andrew Ross has put up some Year 6 Pied Piper of Hamelyn planning material on his Primary Teacher UK blog site. He's used a topic based approach, linking his numeracy, literacy and a selection of foundation subject activies to the drama production that his class will be working on after the SATs. Why not pop along and take a look? If you don't fancy the Pied Piper as a theme then it will still give you lots of ideas of how you can produce something similar on a different topic.

Children Paint Giant Lowry!

Students from Leesland Junior School in Gosport have taken a leaf out of Rolf Harris' book and have painted their own giant version of a L. S. Lowry painting!

During their World War II project around ninety Year 5 children produced their own small sections of the picture which have been combined to create a reproduction measuring ten feet by three feet. The finished piece of artwork is currently being displayed in the Gosport Discovery Centre.

The Birdbox Project 2006

http://www.segfl.org.uk/birdbox/
I came across this project towards the end of its run last year so I've been looking forward to the 2006 relaunch for a while. Organised by the South East Grid for Learning the project sees school bird nesting boxes being kitted out with video cameras and other data capturing equipment. The resulting feeds are broadcast over the Internet. Schools involved in the project have their own pages to record what's happening with their box, there's a forum to report anything interesting you've seen happening when you've visited the site and the SEGfL also organise Q&A sessions with bird experts. At the moment there's not a lot of activity in the boxes themselves but hopefully that will soon change!

2006 Wikipedia CD Selection

http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/education-cd.htm
Orphan charity SOS Children's Villages have released a free electronic encyclopaedia (with 8000 images and 4000 pages worth of text) made up of articles cleaned up and selected from the free online community created Wikipedia site. The articles have apparently been chosen to appeal to children aged 8-15 although I think younger students will struggle with the difficulty of the text in places. It's certainly an interesting idea. You can download the entire resource as a zip file or use it online.

Mapping Our World

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/resources/mapping_our_world/
Oxfam launched a brand new free website last week... Mapping our World helps pupils explore the difference between a map and a globe, and how different map projections affect our perceptions of the world.

Oxfam says: "Designed for whole class learning on an interactive whiteboard, this resource will transform pupils' understanding of their place in the world and develop skills of enquiry and critical thinking. A host of colourful characters guide pupils through the activities, including Holey Moley, Bob the Pirate, and aliens from the Planet Famox making learning fun and teachers' lives easier!

Mapping our World is supports the Geography curriculum (KS2/P3
upwards) and is also ideal for bringing a global approach to Citizenship, PSE and ICT studies. The resource suits all abilities and learning styles, and features nine structured activities and full teachers' notes."

Back to Normal...

I hope everyone who had some time off had an enjoyable break. The blog (and the updating of the main site) is back to normal this week.

During the Easter holidays the Primary Resources Forums have been quite busy. We've had continuing discussions about the topics of mountains, Indus Valley and the European Countries. Site users have also helped each other out with requests for Year 5 SATs style assessments, activities for storysacks and details of a reading assessment scheme.

Some requests for help that still need answering include whether anyone knows about possible changes to the QCA ICT scheme of work, details of what should go in a Science co-ordinator's file, links to anything about progression in thinking skills and a request for contact details for an artist who could work with a school in Kent during art week. If you can help out with any of those requests then please pop along to the forums.

Books: Stories for Thinking

'Stories for Thinking' by Robert Fisher

This book contains 30 multi-cultural stories for KS2 children. There's a nice collection here that can be used for assemblies or class lessons. Each story is presented together with some discussion questions as well as ideas for further activities. There's also a detailed introduction which gives you some ideas of how to use the stories and how to structure your sessions.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: Round the Year

'Round the Year' by Jeanne L. Jackson

[Amazon Link] A nice collection of ninety-nine stories for primary school assemblies presented in school year order and and collected together into themes. As with any assembly book I've found that some stories are better than others but it's a nice one to pick and choose material from. It's also useful for class assemblies of PSHE lessons.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: Please Mrs Butler

'Please Mrs Butler' by Allan Ahlberg

The original collection of school poems by the wonderful Allan Ahlberg. Every teacher must have a copy if only to whip it out and read 'Colin' at the appropriate moment!

Everyone will recognise in this witty collection the familiar sayings and events of the classroom: never-ending projects, reading tests, quarrels, friendships, excuses and 'Please, Sir, it isn't fair'

Includes 'Please Mrs Butler', 'Slow Reader', 'Supply Teacher', 'Complaint' and many more marvellous verses that are as relevant now as when they were first written.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse

'The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse' selected by Quentin Blake

Another great collection of poetry, chosen and illustrated by Quentin Blake.

Ever eaten poodle strudel?

Slain a Jabberwock?

Bathed in Irish Stew?

A perfect companion volume to the Works (mentioned yesterday), this collection draws together some of the funniest, cleverest and downright weirdest poems, old and new.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: The Works

'The Works' chosen by Paul Cookson

Are there any teachers or primary schools that don't have a copy of this book already? If you don't then buy it now!

Every kind of poem you will ever need for the Literacy Hour!

This is without a doubt the most used book I've ever bought connected with teaching. If you have to teach poetry then you can't do without it as it's the perfect place to find examples of every different type of poem you'll ever need. It's aways the first place I look before moving onto other anthologies.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: Mixed Up Fairy Tales

'Mixed Up Fairy Tales' by Hilary Robinson and Nick Sharratt

This split page book allows you to mix and match different fairy stories together to make your own funny tales!
Do you know the tale of Aladdin who climbed up a beanstalk and found a helping of porridge at the top? Have you hear the story of Little Red Riding Hood, who got a scratch from a spinning wheel and turned into a beautiful swan?

This is great either at the start of a topic on fairy stories (to see what fairy stories they know already) or at the end (to reinforce the characters and themes). It's also great for inspiration for children to write their own versions of fairy stories. Well worth getting hold of a copy.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: The Guard Dog

'The Guard Dog' by Dick King-Smith

This charming little story is suitable for younger readers and is a nice introduction to the work of Dick-King Smith.

The scruffy little mongrel in the pet shop window has a grand ambition - to be a guard dog. The other pups laugh at him. How could such a small, scruffy dog with such a horrible bark ever expect to be chosen? Will the poor little guard dog be doomed to a lonely life in the Dog's Home - or worse?

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: Little Wolf's Book of Badness

'Little Wolf's Book of Badness' by Ian Whybrow

One of my favourite children's books...

Little Wolf has trouble being bad. His mum and dad send him off to Cunning College to learn the 9 Rules of Badness from Uncle Bigbad.

A great story told through letters from Little Wolf back to his parents. It's brilliant when you're looking at letter writing as well as character descriptions, position and direction and even spelling.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: George's Marvellous Medicine

'George's Marvellous Medicine' by Roald Dahl

There's probably no need to recommend Roald Dahl's books as I would hope that everyone uses them anyway! Out of all of his wonderful stories this one is probably my favourite book for using with children.

George has a grizzly old grunion of a grandma with revolting eating habits. When he can't stand her any longer, George decides to cure her nastiness for good. He concocts a very special medicine which is as nasty as she is... with explosive results!

There's so much work you can do on this one from character descriptions to newspaper reports to writing instructions for creating your own medicine. Lots of fun.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: Robomum

'ROBOMUM' by Emily Smith

This is a nice short story by Emily Smith for younger KS2 children.
James' mum is a brilliant scientist, but James wishes she was better at the ordinary things in life. He'd really like to have a clean PE kit and interesting things for tea, but his mum has other things on her mind. Then suddenly, Mum has a brilliant idea. Surely a robotic mother - a Robomum - is just what they both need?

We did lots of work writing our own stories about what it would be like having a 'Roboteacher' after reading this book. You can see an example text on the main site.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: Horrid Henry

'Horrid Henry' by Francesca Simon

The Horrid Henry books are great with their clear characterisation and fun stories. This, the first in the series, contains four short tales which are brilliantly illustrated by Tony Ross.
Henry was horrid. Everyone said so, even his mother. Henry threw food, Henry snatched, Henry pushed and shoved and pinched. Even his teddy avoided him when possible. Then one day Henry wondered what would actually happen if he was good...

Horrid Henry and Perfect Peter are such complete opposites that the stories are great for comparing the two characters.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: The Monster Story-Teller

'The Monster Story-Teller' by Jacqueline Wilson

I couldn't let a week of book recommendations go by without recommending at least one from my favourite children's author. 'The Story of Tracey Beaker' and 'Cliff Hanger' probably win hands down as the books that I've used the most in class but this is a nice quick read when working with younger children.

One morning at school, Natalie is feeling bored - until a tiny monster waves at her from a plant on the classroom window sill. The monster whizzes her off in his mini flying saucer for some MONSTER FUN. Now Natalie really has some monster stories to tell!

You can do lots of nice work on tall tales with this one and also get your students to come up with their own monsters and monster planets.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: The Julian Stories

'The Julian Stories' by Ann Cameron

This book was hauntingly familiar when I came across it as a teacher and I realised that I must've had it read to me when I was at school.

Julian just can't resist a taste of the wonderful lemon pudding his father has made. But as he and his little brother, Huey, taste just a little bit more, the pudding is suddenly all gone! And Julian is in trouble...

It's a spellbinding book with some lovely stories that really provoke the imagination. We did a huge amount of work on the short stories and the class loved them so much that I managed to track down import versions of some of the other tales about Julian and Huey.

Got any books or texts that you'd like to recommend to other teachers? Tell us about them in the Primary Resources forums...

Books: The Chocolate Monster

'The Chocolate Monster' by Jan Page

I like Jan Page's books a lot and this is a great little story for younger children...

Lucy is always losing things. She knows that they can't just vanish into thin air and one day she finds the culprit, a strange little monster who lives under her bed. He's taken all Lucy's things and he won't give them back. Until Lucy finds out that he might just swap them for... CHOCOLATE!

We did quite a lot of nice work based on this one in the past including creating and describing our own monsters and imagining what things around school that our monsters might be responsible for.

Easter Break & Book Recommendations

As it's the Easter fortnight for schools in our area (I know a lot of you have already had one week off already) I'm going to take a short break from updating the main website... keep sending in your resources for inclusion, though! The next main update will be in a couple of weeks time.

For the next two weeks I'm going to be including some book recommendations in the place of the normal blog entries. I've basically gone through my shelves of books and I've picked out some of the titles that I've used the most in the past. This links in with a new section on the forums where you can share your recommendations of good books or texts to use in school as well as ask for help finding specific resources.

Site Update: 7th April 2006

Well over 60 new resources added this week (marked with a blue new symbol) and also 21 new images in the photograph section. Full details are below.

MATHS: Measures (Y5 T2 U7 Days 2-5) (ppt), FDP Dominoes Set 1, FDP Dominoes Set 2, Measuring Using cms, Pizza Fractions, Properties of 2D Shapes, Division by Grouping Y3, Properties of 3D Shapes, Calculator Skills - Money, Y4 Graph Questions, Place Value (SATs Revision), Maths Problem Solving Strategies
ENGLISH: Simile or Metaphor? (ppt), 'Beegu' Guided Reading, 'Into the Forest' Guided Reading, 'The Silver Swan' Guided Reading, 'The Whale's Song' Guided Reading, 'Voices in the Park' Guided Reading, 'The Snow Leopard' Guided Reading, 'Blue John' Planning, 'Snow Dragon' Planning, 'The Boat' Planning, 'The Tunnel' Planning, 'The Hunter' Planning, 'The Ice Child' Planning, Consonant Digraphs Y3/4, Vowel Digraphs Y3/4, Final Consonant Blends Y3/4, Silent Vowels Y3/4, 'Rare Beasts' Lesson Plan, Adjectives in Descriptions (Examples), The Tortoise and the Hare (Direct Speech), Homophones Story, Speech Marks Corrections, Spot the Homophones, Similes and Metaphors (ppt), Newspaper Planning Sheet
SCIENCE: Magnets and Springs WWtbaM (ppt), Solids, Liquids & Gases Sheets,
HISTORY: Tudor Murders
GEOGRAPHY: Rivers Wordsearch, Brazilian Cities Project,
ART: Chairs (ppt),
MUSIC: Graphic Score Template,
MFL: French: Reveal the Fruits (Textease), French: Colour Stars (ppt), French: Number Bingo, French: Days (Grid), French: My Birthday, French: Instructions Wordsearch, French: In My Town (ppt), French: Drinks (ppt), French: In My House... (ppt), French: Animals (ppt), French: Transport (ppt), French: Where Do You Live? (ppt), French: Paris Tour (ppt)
OTHER: Traffic Lights, Pupil Personal Progress File, Traffic Light Behaviour, Noise Level Chart
PSHE: Would You Rather? (ppt), Would You Rather? #2 (ppt)
PHOTOS: Additions this week... Science: Hatching Chicks (10), Classroom Display Ideas: Art (2)

Doodle 4 Google

http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/events/doodle.html
Google and it's various free products get lots of mentions on this website but it's hardly my fault that they're taking over the world! Primary Teacher UK has put up some details about the competition Google UK is running (for students between 4 and 18) to design a Google logo that represents what it means to be British today. The prizes include goody bags, framed doodles, interactive whiteboards and a trip to San Francisco to work with the official Google logo designer. Oh, the winning design will also be featured on the Google UK homepage for 24hrs and be seen by approximately 18 million people! Check out the link at the top of the page for more details on how to get your school involved.

(To restore the balance a little bit, if you believe the whole Google thing is getting out of control then perhaps you'll like this T-Shirt.)

Primary Resources Survey 2006: The Results

Many thanks once again to everyone who responded to the site survey we ran during March. A lot more of you got in touch than I thought which was great as it's given me a very good idea of what you like about the site, what you'd like to see changed and some ideas for what I could add to the site in the future. The winner of the £20 Amazon gift voucher is Christine Hopkins.

I've put all the results up in a special section on the forums. Please feel free to pop over and have a look. I doubt that all the statistics in there will interest eveyone but please have a read through all of the suggestions threads as I'd really appreciate your comments on the ideas the rest of the site's users have come up with.

Recyclezone

http://www.recyclezone.org.uk/
I've just found an event better recycling website than the one I mentioned yesterday. Recyclezone features tons of interactive online games and clear information pages.

There's also instructions for making your own recycled paper, how to make a worm composter and compost waste as well as lots of other seasonal recycling ideas (although they're currently still showing the Summer ones!)

The teacher's section includes a collection of teacher's pages from the 'Waste' newsletter, details of how recycling fits in to the curriculum, recommended websites and publications and practical steps for cutting down waste and introducing recycling at school.

National Grid for Learning to Close

In a very confusing move Becta have announced (in a similarly confusing statement) that the National Grid for Learning portal site is to close.

Becta writes:

Our aim is to work towards a position where teachers should be able to work from any internet access point at any time, linked to the tools and learning services they need in order to plan, prepare, manage and follow up learning experiences for their students. We will also work with a number of other sites provided by the DfES, its agencies, and local authorities to co-ordinate search services.

To achieve this, Becta is rationalising its services and integrating them into the national digital infrastructure that it is working with partners to establish, to reduce duplication and co-ordinate access and searching for content and supporting material. A key component of this is to reduce the number of sites people have to visit as well as simplifying the names and brands. As a result, over the coming months you will see changes to Becta’s online presence.

The National Grid for Learning (NGfL) portal is part of this rationalisation process. Over the coming months we will work to improve the search services currently offered within the NGfL portal so we can offer more effective search of online resources as well as link users to related information.

As part of this programme of work, on the 13 April 2006, the search element and schools focused resources of the NGfL will relocate to the Becta Schools website. The other elements of the NGfL portal will undergo a closure.

I've been saying for years that there have are too many different government sites. While I agree with the move to provide teachers with a single focal point for information when it comes to government sponsored resources and services , I'm surprised that the NGfL brand is being dropped.

It'll be interesting how Becta see independent resource sites like this one fitting in two their new 'national digital infrastructure'. In the past we've been a badged member of the NGfL (our badge now needs to be removed apparently.) I wonder what opportunities for collaboration will exist in the future.

Sita UK's Green Team

http://www.sita.co.uk/education/kids/flash
This site will help your students learn how our glass, plastic, metal and paper is recycled. There's also a simple sorting game where pupils get to sort the household waste into the correct containers. Teachers can also send off for an education pack and download activity sheets.

Technical Issues Resolved

The technical issues we were having with the site have now been resolved. Normal service is now resumed! ;)

Some Slight Technical Issues

We are experiencing some slight technically issues with some elements of the site due to issues with the server the site is hosted on. At the moment it seems to be restricted to the banner advert service. I'm hoping that this problem will be sorted out early this morning by our website host.

These problems are also affecting the Teaching Ideas website as well. Again, they hope that the problems will be rectified this morning.