Site Update: 29th September 2006

A bumper sized update this week with 100 new resources added to the main site. Full details are below. Many thanks to everyone who continues to support the site by sending in material. These weekly updates wouldn't be possible without your help.

MATHS: Length Conversions (ppt) / Target Boards / Odd and Even Number Grid / Rounding (to nearest 10) / Clothing Combinations / Information in Tables / Addition and Subtraction Word Display / Coin Card Deck / Money Maze 1p - £2 / Which Coins? / Match the Values / Double and Near Doubles Cards / The Ice Cream Problem / Place Value Grids / Robot Multiplication / Robot Division / Divide by 10, 100 / Multiplication by multiples of 5 and 10 / Multiply by 5 and 50 / Calculations Poster / 1 More or 1 Less Game / 10 More or 10 Less Game / Adding 3 Numbers Game / Long Multiplication (ppt)
ENGLISH: Using Speech Marks (ppt) / Building Good Sentences (Smart) / Making Toast / How to Make a Bath / Story Openings / Story Endings / Story Hints / Antonyms (Opposites) / Compound Words / Palindromes / Similes / Similes Reference / Reading Report / Arthurian Legend (Example) / Greek Myth (Example) / Learning Spelling Tips / Complex Sentences / Literacy Reminder Mats / Capital Letters and Full Stops / Character Development / Reception HF Flashcards / Y1 & Y2 HF Flashcards / Instruction Verbs / Fact or Opinion / Homophones / Newspaper Article Analysis / Newspaper Framework
SCIENCE: Life Cycles - Germination (Smart) / Plants Investigation (ppt) / Solids, Liquids & Gases Display / Magnet Investigation / Edward Jenner and the Cure for Smallpox / The 7 Life Processes / Skeleton Assessment / Skeleton Worksheet / Electricity Assessment / Jelly Friction Experiement / Sources of Light
HISTORY: Evacuation (ppt) / Aztec Gods (ppt) / Your Big Dig / Victorian Children at Work
ICT: Powerpoint Step-by-Step
RE: Rosh Hashanah (ppt) / Yom Kippur (ppt) / What is a Church? / Stations of the Cross (ppt) / Sikhism Quiz
LANGUAGES: French: In My Pencil Case (ppt) / French: Pencil Case Follow On / French: Transport Follow On
D&T: Storybooks (Control Mechanisms) Planning / Skills Activity Cards / Shape Cards / Mechanism Analysis / Intended Purpose / Planning Pop Up Cards or Book
PSHE: A Recipe for Friendship
FOUNDATION: Ourselves Topic Web (Autumn) / My Name Planning (Literacy)
OTHER: Homework Club Card / Activity Club Card / Response Sandwich
ASSEMBLY: Peace Babies (ppt)
WELSH: Planning: Descriptions/ Planning: Greetings & Everyday Conversations / Planning: Illnesses / Welsh Colour Flashcards / Welsh Questions / Welsh Questions 2 / Welsh Answers / What's the Time? / Illness Flashcards / Write About Your Partner / Description Flashcards / Description Pictures

Maths at Subtangent

http://www.subtangent.com
This site, by mathematics teacher Duncan Keith, contains a large selection of investigations, games and other resources. Although much of the material is probably best suited for older students there's plenty on the site that's useful for Key Stage 2 as well. Games include 'Who Wants to be a Mathionaire?', 'Higher or Lower', 'Countdown' as well as the super 'Broken Calculators' game.

BBC School Radio

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio/
It may seem a little old fashioned in some ways but BBC School Radio is still going strong. Like all the other radio services at the BBC it also takes advantage of modern technology and you can listen to the current episodes of a lot of the shows at the web address given above. It's nice to see that Music Workshop, a reminder of my own time at primary school, is still going strong!

Another great feature of the BBC website is that it includes lots of really useful sound clips. There's a super music clips library that illustrates elements of music such as pitch and timbre. Another section gives you lots of sounds that you can use a stimulus in lessons. My favourite has got to be the collection of WW2 sound clips that include everything from Neville Chamberlain's speech to a reporter describing the celebrations on VJ... perfect for history lessons!

On the Forum...

There's plenty of topics being discussed on the Primary Resources Forum. There's quite a lot of Key Stage 1 chat, including which version of the SATs papers to use next year and how to work with a HLTA. There's also an interesting rewards & sanctions thread which started off as a request for whole school policy ideas but also includes a lot of other ideas. Plenty of links have been posted by Primary Resources users including ones to great interactive applications to download, a great 3D shapes program and a link to free downloadable number cards.

Schoolmedia

http://www.schoolmedia.org.uk/
Education Media have recently launched Schoolmedia, a site that provides a free online learning platform for schools.

It's completely free to use and allows you to create material using the Moodle system. Moodle is a great piece of software which gives you access to items such as forums, quizzes, blogs, surveys, chat, glossaries and peer-assessment tools. If you're working together with older students or teachers from a group of schools in a learning community then it's a great resource. Why not pop along to Schoolmedia and give it a try?

(If you really find you get into Moodle then you can do all sorts with it. For example, Broadoak Primary School have used it to create their school website!)

Site Update: 22nd September 2006

We've added 55 new resources to the main site this week. Full details are below. As usual, our thanks go to everyone who has taken the time to share their resources by sending them into the site.

MATHS: Capacity l/ml (ppt) / Factors Number Display / Snakes & Ladders Counting (Smart) / Which Sign? (ppt) / Number 9 book / Number Ladder / Days of the Week Paperchains
ENGLISH: Ban Boring Sentences! (ppt) / Grid Method Multiplication / Wreck of the Zanzibar Agony Aunt / Character Study Sheet / Noah's Brother Task Cards / CVC Pattern / Jack and the Beanstalk / Weather Acrostic Poems (ppt) / Silent k and w / Double Letter Alphabet / Adding -ing / Prefixes un dis re
SCIENCE: A World of Sounds (ppt) / Sugar in Tea (ppt) / Food Chains (ppt) / Animal Skeletons (ppt) / Shiny Surfaces (ppt) / Y5/6 Interdependence and Adaption (ppt) / My 5 Senses / Forces Investigation / Springs (ppt) / The 5 Senses
HISTORY: Egyptian Class Assembly / Vikings (Activ) / Tudors Y4 (ppt) / The Pilgrim Fathers / The Victorians (Smart)
ICT: ICT Basics x4 / Favourite Websites Display
RE: Hindu Gods (ppt)
LANGUAGES: German Lesson 7 Weather / German Lesson 8 Introducting Oneself / German Lesson 9 Culture / German Introducing Oneself Vocab Sheet / German Role Play / German Numbers (Smart) / Germany (Smart) / French Verb Presentation (ppt) / Spanish Numbers 1-10 (ppt) / Spanish Heads Shoulders, Knees and Toes
PSHE: Friendship Cards
FOUNDATION: Number Activities for Parents / Number Rhyme Booklet / Home Visit Checklist

British Myths and Legends

http://myths.e2bn.net/
It's nice to come across a myths & legends resource which showcases stories from Britain. This new site, designed for KS2 &3, features 31 stories including tales of giants, dragons, witches and ghostly apparitions. The site is by the East of England Broadband Network so the current batch of stories mostly originate in that area.

Each story is presented using text, graphics & audio. There's detailed notes on the origins of the tales, galleries showing real-life photographs of places in the stories, teacher's pages, a glossary and plenty of other resources.

The site is big on sharing... You can add your own myths and legends to a map of resources. To help you tell your story the site provides a excellent story making tool, a sound and picture gallery and a timeline to place the stories in their historic context.

Maths Anarchy

http://www.mathsanarchy.com/
Teacher Shirley Sides has contributed a lot of material to the Primary Resources site. Maths Anarchy is her own website and it contains a good selection of mathematical investigations, reasoning problems and puzzles. There's also an interesting article about the place of investigations in the primary curriculum.

Games at Sandfields

http://www.sandfields.co.uk/games/games.html
We've included some of Stewart Davies' games and resources on the main Primary Resources site. The address above links to all his great activities at Sandfields Comprehensive School. There's Blockbusters and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire powerpoint templates together with The Weakest Link scoreboard. There's also timers, random selectors and a brand new resource called Rouleaux (which selects items in a slot machine style). One of the best things about the site is that you can download the files for each game and alter them to make resources on your own subjects. Great stuff!

Pound a Poem

http://www.poundapoem.com/
Cancer Research UK launches their 'Pound a Poem' poetry competition today. Aimed at Year 3 to Year 6 pupils the competition involves getting the students to write a poem about fruit and vegetables.

Entry into the competition costs £1 per poem. The money raised goes to Cancer Research and the four winning poems from each school (one from each year group) which will be entered into the national final. When I was writing this blog entry the prizes for winning weren't listed but I'm sure they'll appear on the site later in the day.

The 'Pound a Poem' site contains useful information for teachers (such as links to poetry resources), a couple of lesson plans, a topic web and also a cartoon short that introduces the activity.

Site Update: 15th September 2006

This week the update includes 70 new resources for the main site and also over 20 pictures added to the photo section. Full details are below. Thanks to everyone who was kind enough to send in new material... we really appreciate your support!

MATHS: Numeracy Learning Wall (Display) / Counting Fish (Smart) / Counting Monkeys (Smart) / Coordinate Geometry (ppt) / Angles (ppt) / Angles in a Triangle (ppt) / Flash Fractions x4 (ppt) / Decimal Fractions and Percentages (ppt) / Positive and Negative Numbers (ppt) / Da Vinchi Codes (Algebra) (ppt) / Y6 Word Problems (ppt) / Y4 Addition and Subtraction Word Problems (ppt) / Y4 Length Word Problems (ppt) / 4 in a Row Game x2, x5 / 4 in a Row Game x3, x4 / 4 in a Row Game x6, x7 / Carroll Diagrams / Measuring Centimeters with a Ruler (Smart)
ENGLISH: Adverbs and Adjectives (Venn) / Antonym Cards / Persuasive Argument Checklist / Chapter Summary Checklist / Film Review Checklist / Classifying Poems / Connectives as Signpost / Contraction (Apostrophe) / Connectives Display / Emotion Word Cards / Formal Words and Phrases / Metaphorical Expressions / Playscript Features and Vocabulary / Poem Review / Technical Poetry Words / Poetic Style / Powerful Verbs for Dialogue / Reasons for Using a New Paragraph / Formal Letters Success Criteria / Formal Writing Success Criteria / English Learning Wall (Display) / Singular and Plural Nouns (Activ) / The Nine Parts of Speech (ppt) / Rhyming Snap Cards / Y3/4 Fiction Self Marking Sheet / Non-Ficition Self Marking Sheet / Time Words / Speech Adverbs / Persuasive Writing Checklist / Empathising with Characters / The Elements of a Fairy Tale
SCIENCE: Science Investigation / Learning Wall (Display) / Earth and Space Vocab / Scientific Investigation Success Criteria / Plants, Animals and Habitats Self Assessment
HISTORY: Planning a Biography of Queen Victoria / The First Moon Landing Assembly / Tudor Monarchs (Adter Henry VIII) (ppt) / The Tudors (ppt) / Queen Victoria and her Family (ppt)
D&T: Homemade Bread (ppt) / Investigate Musical Instruments / Design a Musical Instruments
RE: The Five Pillars of Islam (ppt)
ASSEMBLY: The Flying Pizza (Harvest) (ppt)
PSHE: Problem Solving Ring of Choice
OTHER: Good Listeners / School Trip Planning Form / Class Contract
PHOTOS: Geography: Canals (2), Transport (3), Holland (6), Switzerland (2), Germany (2), Landmarks (1) / Maths: Time:Clocks (2) / Science: Butterflies (2)

Tudor Portraits (tudorhistory.org)

http://tudorhistory.org/files/galleryindex.html
This page (from tudorhistory.org) contains links to a large collection of portraits and other images from the Tudor period.

150 Free Microsoft Programs

(Click for link)
Tech blogger Blake Handler has posted this really useful list of 150 free pieces of software you can download from Microsoft. Some of my favourites include...

• USB Flash Drive Manager
• Webcam Timershot
• Synctoy (keep your files on different devices synchronised)
• Paint.NET (a much improved version of paint with layers, new editing tools and effects)
• Image Resizer (easily resize photos and other images by right clicking on them)
• Group shot (build composite images from different photos, ideal when someone had their eyes closed!)
• Creativity Fun Pack (Use any Windows movie file as a screensaver)

BNSC Learning Zone

http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/learningzone.aspx?nid=3261
The British National Space Centre's website features lots of educational resources in their Learning Zone. The Space Cadets section is aimed at KS1 students and includes material that covers light & dark and plants & animals. Space Explorers is for KS2/3 and has some very interesting numeracy challenges as well as plenty of resources on the topic of the Earth & Beyond.

Layered Targets

http://www.primarystuff.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=19.0
Regular Primary Resources forum poster Smiling Mungo has put together this collection of links to websites that feature layered target resources. It's well worth checking out as there's some very useful material being created by various LEAs.

Toon University

http://www.toonuniversity.com/activitylist.asp?dept=MATH
This US subscription site has plenty of interesting demo activities that you can access for free. The controls are a little twitchy on some of the games but the ones that are mouse controlled work well on an IWB. Use selectively.

Contact an Author

http://www.contactanauthor.co.uk/
This site (from the team at Word Pool) has been designed to easily enable schools (and other organisations) to contact authors to arrange visits and other events. The site features a comprehensive search engine (which provides access to the information on each author), a guide to booking an author as well as a facility to save a shortlist of the authors you wish to contact.

(If you haven't already done so, it's also worth checking out the Word Pool's other sites... The Word Pool, http://www.wordpool.co.uk/: A guide to children's books for parents, teachers & writers. UK Children's Books, http://www.ukchildrensbooks.co.uk/: Links to the websites of children's book authors, illustrators and publishers. Both sites are extremely useful!)

Site Update: 9th September 2006

New additions this week include over 70 new resources in the main site and 29 new images in the photo section. Our thanks go to all the helpful teachers who continue to support the site (and their colleagues all over the world) by sending in resources.

We've made quite a few minor changes to the site in this update. Several sections have been reorganised to make material easier to find. We're now using new icons to more clearly label resources aimed at specific year groups. These age recommendations should only be used as a guide.

MATHS: Blank Time Worksheet / Dividing Money by 4 and 5 / Division Dominoes Game / Money Problems Y1 & 2 (Smart) / Written Division Methods Y5 T1 U2 d3-5 (ppt) / Multiplication and Division Y5 T1 U3 d1-5 (ppt)
ENGLISH: Three Little Pigs Activities / Three Little Pigs (Smart) / 'b's and 'd's (Smart) / Connectives / Common Words Loop Cards / English Language Jeopardy / Animal Magic Homework Project / Using a Thesaurus / Keywords Game / Adding -ing and -ed (Smart) / Double Negatives (Smart) / Homophones Passage (Smart) / Plurals -y Words (Smart) / Suffixes -ate, -ify, -en (Smart) / Verbs, Nouns & Pronouns (Smart) / The Time Wreccas Comprehension / Match Headlines with Reports / Writing Poems (ppt) / Compound Words (ppt) / Ambiguous Statements (ppt)
SCIENCE: The Internal Structure of the Earth / Reversible and Irreversible Changes / Moving and Growing Assembly / The Solar System and Beyond (ppt) / Animal Adaptation (Smart) / Classifying Animals Using a Key (Smart) / Foodchains (Smart) / Reading Classification Keys (Smart) / Gases in the Air (Smart) / Investigation Cards / Concept Map: Materials / Concept Map: Light and Dark / Planning a Science Investigations (ppt) / Space Quiz / Our Solar System / Classify Living Organisms Using Keys / Classification of Invertebrates
ICT: Animation Unit Plan / ICT Basics Assessment / Sounds and Pictures / Communication / Rennie Mackintosh Project (ppt) / Surf and Swap
HISTORY: Propaganda Activity / Anglo-Saxon Booklet / Greek Timeline / Placing the Victorians in History / Queen Victoria Quiz / Victorians Quiz / Biography of Queen Victoria (ppt) / Greek Myths (ppt)
GEOGRAPHY: Kenya Scheme of Work / India (ppt) / Indian Climate (ppt)
ART: Artist Study
D&T: Pop-Up Storybooks Booklet / Sandwich Design Sheet / Salad and Bread Tasting
RE: The Tipitaka (Smart) / Bhagavad Gita (Smart)
MUSIC: The Orchestra (ppt) / Danse Macabre (ppt)
PSHE: "All About Me" Poster
OTHER: Today's Timetable / Polish: Days of the Week / Polish: Months of the Year / Polish: Numbers
PHOTOS: Geography: Greece (8), D&T: Bridges (3), Science: Birds (4), Mammals (4), Class DIsplay Ideas: English (4), Science (1), Maths (1), Geography (1), Art (1), PSHE (1), D&T (1)

Site Maintenance

This is just a little bit of advanced notice of the fact that I'll be taking the entire Primary Resources site offline tomorrow afternoon (Friday 7th September, 12.30pm GMT at the earliest). The site should come back up sometime during the evening.

I'll be using this maintenance period to clear a lot of the old files off the server that have been building up over the past few years as well as make some changes to the internal structure of the website. It's all behind the scenes stuff so you won't see much of a difference, but it'll make things a lot tidier for me. The first update of this new school year will also go online tomorrow afternoon as well. Unlike during a normal site update, no resources or pages on the site will be accessible until the process is complete.

Facilities that are hosted on the Primary Stuff domain (such as the forum and the photograph section) will be unaffected by the downtime (but you'll need to bookmark a link so you can access them).

Solar System Simulation

http://universe.chimons.org/contents/solar-en.html
This great download was mentioned by one of the posters in our forum recently. It's an absolutely brilliant little program that gives you a simulation of the solar system to play with.

It shows you how the planets are currently aligned and you can watch as they slowly orbit (or very quickly orbit as you can adjust the speed!) the sun. You can fly all around the solar system , centre and even land on each of the planets.

You can turn on and off lots of different graphical settings to show the planet orbits, comets, star names and lots more.There's even a feature to show all the constellations both as dots and lines and also as pictures.... you get to see Ursa Major as the Great Bear etc.

Top Villains Revealed

http://www.bigbadread.co.uk/
I mentioned the Big Bad Read website earlier in the year, back when voting was still open. The results are now online. The final top 20 favourite villains are probably more a reflection of the current levels of popularity of the associated books (and films) but it's nice to see characters like Neil Gaiman's The Other Mother (from the book 'Coraline') getting a mention. I must admit I'm still baffled by the inclusion of Zaphod Beeblebrox... surely he's just a misunderstood guy with two heads?

Forum Back Online

The Primary Resources Forum is now back online. Many apologies that this service was offline for a day. Due to issues with the old forum software I've changed to a new system. It means we have to start from scratch again but I'm hoping it will work better in the longer term.

Note: You will need to re-register to use the new forum software. I've removed the need for email authentication for the moment so people can set up new accounts as quickly as possible.

Camelsdale First School Resources

http://www.camelsdale.w-sussex.sch.uk/teach_with_ict.asp
There's a great set of Literacy and Numeracy powerpoints on this school's site. They're mostly for the foundation stage and KS1 but there are some for KS2 as well.

Forums Offline

The message boards are currently offline for maintenance.

Update: It looks like the boards will continue to be unavailable this evening and probably won't come back up into late tomorrow. There's been a few problems with the software so I'm going to keep them offline until everything is completely sorted out.

SEN Resources

There's a few sites I want to mention today...

Widgit's Support for Parents & Carers
http://www.widgit.com/parents/
As well as providing lots of great software and communication materials Widgit keep producing lots of nice mini-sites. I've mentioned several of them in the blog before now. These new pages have been designed to support the parents & carers of children with SEN. The mini-site provides easy access to a lot of downloadable materials (such as stories, games, vocabularly lists etc.) that can be printed to help out with learning at home.

Ispeek Freebies
http://www.ispeek.co.uk/index.asp?page=freebies.asp
There's several nice free downloads on this website, including several that will be useful for all pupils not just those with SEN. I particularly like the passport booklets. The Rice Krispie Cakes recipe page would be useful if you're looking at instructional texts.

Communication 4 All
http://www.communication4all.co.uk/
You have to browse around a lot to find the free resources on this site but there's plenty of interesting material to be had if you do. The signing resources page has a nice set of classroom labels, there's some useful sheets on the science pages and also four good powerpoints in the download section.

Grow Your Own Grub

http://www.growinggrub.co.uk
Grow Your Own Grub is a website from Portsmouth City Council that's designed for any school that wants to run an outdoor food growing project. This comprehensive website gives you all the information you need to make your project successful. It covers growing vegetables in the ground as well as growing them in containers (for those schools who are short of space). It's a great way to encourage an interest in growing (and eating!) vegetables.

Hinduism for Schools

http://www.hinduism.fsnet.co.uk/
This is a really nice collection of pages on Hinduism. The primary school section is very easy to read and contains clear information about all aspects of the religion. There's also sections containing festival dates (for the next 4 years), Hindu prayers and a comprehensive glossary (with audio pronounciations). It's brilliant for using in class and would also provide a quick introduction for teachers.

First Week Activities

There's been a couple of discussions on the Primary Resources Forums about activities for the first week back. If you're still trying to come up with something to do then there's some ideas in this thread here and also this thread here. I've also come across some great suggestions at Bob's Place. Education World is another great source of material and it has two pages of icebreaker ideas (here and here).

Yet another bad Ebay-er...

Many apologies that this first post back after the summer break is mainly a rant...

Yesterday I was alerted to the fact that there was another 'teacher' selling resources on eBay that had been taken from the Primary Resources website. This person had been selling powerpoints by myself and at least five other contributors to the site.

Looking back through past sales it appears that this person has made at least £15 through sales of our resources. It may not seem like a lot of money but in my opinion it is money that the eBayer is not entitled to.

Primary Resources is a forum for sharing teaching ideas and resources for free. It exists thanks to the generosity of teachers all around the world and I am not at all happy that their material is being exploited in this way.

All the material on the Primary Resources website is copyrighted. There are clear conditions of use. Taking resources and selling them on is completely out of order. Luckily eBay are very quick to respond to copyright concerns and have taken down the offending items.

Looking through the other resources (that are still advertised on this particular eBayer's pages) I see that many of them are available for free on websites such as the Middlesbrough Whiteboard Network pages.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a great fan of eBay. It's brilliant for everyday bargains and there are also some talented teachers using it to distribute some of the material that they have spent a lot of time producing. However, my message to teachers buying resources (especially electronic ones) is to be very careful. Please check that you aren't spending money on resources that the original authors actually made available on the Internet for free!

A lot of time, effort and money goes into sustaining sites like Primary Resources. We will always take action against anyone who steals from the site.