Digital Video & Other Media

If you're interested in using digital video and other media in primary schools then it's worth checking out these sites...

Digital Video in Education
http://www.dvined.org.uk
This website is a place for educators to share their experiences of using digital video. There's lots of really useful articles, tips, reviews and ideas.

MediaEd
http://www.mediaed.org.uk/
This UK media education website has a large collection of useful information for teachers and students on film-making in the classroom.

Media Education Wales
http://www.mediaedwales.org.uk/
Media Education Wales is a great organisation that supports media and moving image education through resources, research and consultancy (across the UK, not just in Wales). They produce an excellent CD-ROM called Making Movies Make Sense. I've used it myself and it's a must for any teacher who's interested in digital video.

Online Advent Calendar

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/calendar/
I mentioned this site in the blog last year but I thought it was worth flagging it up again as it's almost December 1st once again. Woodlands Junior School's online advent calendar features lots of really interesting information about Christmas customs around the world. There's links to loads of other useful seasonal resources on the page as well.

Moving History

http://www.movinghistory.ac.uk/
This website showcases some of the films that form part of the UK's twelve public film archives. The movies (some amateur, other professional) date from the birth of film (1895) to the present day. There's several films that will be useful for primary teachers in general (including one of a school air raid practice) and many will be of interest to schools in particular areas due to their local history links.

International Children's Digital Library

http://www.childrenslibrary.org
The International Children's Digital Library is a charitable organisation that is trying to build the world's largest online multicultural repository of children's literature. It currently offer free access to works from more than 42 countries. The foundation aims to provide students with material in their native languages and also encourage tolerance of other cultures by enabling children to read books from other countries.

There's certainly a vast range of material to look at (both old and more recent) and several different methods to read the books online. I've just come across a lovely hungarian picture only version of the story of Little Red Riding Hood that's perfect for classes studying traditional tales.

Site Update: 24th November 2006

I've added 85 new resources to the main website and 15 new photographs to the image bank in the update this week. Thanks to everyone who took the time to contribute resources.

ENGLISH: Writing a Good Character Description (ppt) / Finding Information from Newspapers / Poetry Challenge / Using a Thesaurus / Non-Fiction Book Review / Goldilocks Newspaper / Story Planning Sheet / Leaflets and Posters (ppt) / Riddles (ppt) / Homophone Dominoes / Fiction or Non-Fiction? / Adding -ing (Easiteach) / Apostrophes (Easiteach) / PiP Pairs Games Step 5, Step 6, Step 7 / Bingo ed, er, est, ful, ing, ly / The House that Jack Built (ppt) / Magic e / More Magic e / e the Super Magician / Make a Word (-all) / Which Word is Correct? (Days of the Week) / Pied Piper of Hamelin Comprehension / Vowel Phonemes Wordsearches i_e, ee, ea, ay, ai, a_e, ow, oa, o_e, igh / Silent Letters Bingo / Prefixes Bingo / Suffices "shun" Bingo / Compound Words Bingo 1 / Compound Words Bingo 2 / Rhyming Words Bingo / Contractions Bingo
MATHS: More or Less (ppt) / Numerator/Denominator Display / Time and Measurement Word Problems (ppt) / Measurement and Time Follow Me Cards / Making 11 (ppt) / 2D Shape Target Board / Multiplication 2x Word Problems / Translations (ppt) / The Witches Cauldron (Smart) / The Magic Carpet (Smart) / Tables Powerpoints (ppt) / Interactive Tables (ppt) / Multiplying and Dividing by 10 (ppt) / Number Bonds to 10 (ppt) / Odd and Even (ppt) / Beginning Decimals / KS1 Division Word Problems
SCIENCE: Heat, Sound, Light and Movement / Heating and Cooling Materials (ppt) / Heating and Cooling Materials / Light Sources - Odd One Out (ppt) / Seed Dispersal (ppt)
ICT: CD-ROM Review Sheet
HISTORY: Doctor What (Victorians Class Assembly) / Roman School / Roman Gladiators
GEOGRAPHY: Weather Tests
ART: Zig Zag Picture Template
RE: Creation Worksheet
PE: Non-Participation Observation Sheet
LANGUAGES: Greeting Signs (Various Languages) / French: Numbers (ppt) / French: Colours (ppt) / French: Instructions (ppt) / Spanish Colours / French Classroom
OTHER: Christmas Around the World (ppt)
ASSEMBLY: Rememberance Sunday (ppt)
PHOTOS: History: Celts (1) / Classroom Display Ideas: ICT (1), Foundation (3), Art (2), Science (2), English (2), Other (2), PSHE (2)

Children's Poetry Archive

http://www.poetryarchive.org/childrensarchive
Part of the bigger Poetry Archive site, these children's pages contain poets such as Allan Ahlberg, Charles Causley and Wes Magee reading some of their own work. A lot of the poems feature introductions by the authors and there's also video interviews with several of the poets. You can search the site by poet, poem title or browse by theme.

Fire Safety

http://www.welephant.co.uk/enter.htm
Welephant is the Fire Services mascot and this is his fire safety website. There's several games on the site, including two very useful kitchen/house hazard identification activities.

http://www.cheshirefire.co.uk/avi%5Fsoftware/
Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service has some excellent pages aimed at children. As with the previous site there's lots of activites where you identify hazards in pictures as well as a selection of useful information and several quizzes.

http://www.firemansam.co.uk/safety.php
Fire safety on the Fireman Sam website, includes worksheets.

http://www.derbyshire-fire-service.co.uk/userimages/kitchen.swf
Activities and information on the Derbyshire Fire Service site.

http://www.firekills.gov.uk/kids/01.htm
Fire Safety with Frances the Firefly on this UK government website.

KidsClick!

http://www.kidsclick.org/
This is quite a useful search engine for use by students in lessons. It only provides results from carefully selected sites so it's a lot safer to use. I would still advise standard Internet safety procedures though (such as checking search results in advance of lessons, agreeing on keywords to be used before students search and not allowing unsupervised use of search sites). You can use KidsClick! to search by keyword, first letter of the subject or browse by category.

Gordon's Flash Modules (Numeracy)

Click here for the link
Gordon's Flash Modules are a collection of over 80 mathematics teaching tools from the Coventry Primary Numeracy Team. Many of the online resources would probably work best as teacher led activities on an interactive whiteboard but there's also quite a few that would be suitable for independent work. I particularly like the dartboard modules as they would be perfect for mental and oral starters.

Site Update: 17th November 2006

I've added 90 new resources to the main website this week. Full details are below. Thanks to everyone who took the time to send in resources. Keep them coming please!

ENGLISH: Synonyms for Said (Display) / 5Ws Game / Jumbled Up Sentences / Making a Musical Instrument / Colonel Fazackerley / Bossy Words (Imperative Verbs) / Time Words / Brushing Your Teeth / Adjectives and Adverts / Punctuation (ppt) / Prepositions (ppt) / Instructions (Textease Presentation) / Story Mountain / Narrative Writing Elephants / Reading Journal Activities / a Sheet / i Sheet / n Sheet / p Sheet / t Sheet / Match Past and Present Verbs / Spelling Wordsearches / Y2 Word Mat / Speech Marks / Fairy Tale Adjectives / Y6 Narrative Texts
MATHS: Division Dominoes / Change from 50p / Phantom Function Gobbler / Supermarket Receipts / Party Shopping / Doubling x4 to Find x8 / Daily Division (xls) / Daily Multiplication (xls) / Perimeter and Area Spreadsheets (xls) / Types of Triangles / Frogs and Toads Investigation (Smart) / Supermarket Shelf Stacker Investigation (Smart) / Shopkeeper Subtraction / Time Problems (ppt) / Nim (Smart) / Multiplication Grid / Odd and Even Numbers / Empty Box Addition / Multiplication and Division Relationship / Diagonals of a Polygon / Fraction Mats / Y2 Maths Mat / Measuring in cms and mms / Magic Number Grid / PNS Problem Solving (Easiteach) / Finding a Half (Smart)
SCIENCE: Introductions to Magnets (ppt) / Condensation (ppt) / Condensation 2 (ppt) / Evaporation (ppt) / The Water Cycle (ppt) / Condensation Crossword / Healthy Diets / Mixing and Dissolving Quiz (ppt) / Separating Mixtures Quiz (ppt)
ICT: Powerpoint Sounts and Effects (ppt) / Logo Lingo Bingo
HISTORY: Thorkel Game Worksheet / Anne Frank's Suitcase / Henry VIII's Wives (ppt) / The Wives of Henry VIII
GEOGRAPHY: Hot or Cold (ppt) / Weather (ppt) / Wet or Dry (ppt)
D&T: Vehicles Bookles / Musical Instruments (ppt)
RE: The Qazi of Az-Zahra (ppt) / Patron Saints / Other Patron Saints
MUSIC: Carnival of the Animals (ppt) / Carnival of the Animals Worksheet / Graphic Score Worksheet
LANGUAGES: French Nativity Book / French Numbers and Animals Book / French Father Christmas (Numbers and Colours) / French Frer Jacques Colours / French What is the Date? (ppt)
WELSH: Sgwrs Ffôn
OTHER: Splat! (Smart) / DUMTUMS / WALT - WILF / Board Labels
ASSEMBLY: St Andrews Assembly / Rememberance Assembly

Escape from Delta 7

http://www.huntington.cheshire.sch.uk/
Escape from Delta 7 is a super piece of "interactive fiction" from the students at Huntington County Primary School in Cheshire (click on the link above and then scroll down the main index page to access the story).

Not only have the Year 6 class written the story they've also used 3D modelling software to create the sci-fi locations and created alien costumes for the actors (which they've superimposed on the backgrounds using photo manipulation software). It looks like it was a very fun, cross-curricular project and there's details on the site of exactly how they did it.

While you're there check out the rest of Huntington's website for some other great work.

Askability

http://www.askability.org.uk
The Children's Society are launching their new Askability website today. Produced by Solutions Squared and Widgit Software, the site has been designed to provide a source of news and information for disabled children and young people. The site uses Widgit's communication symbols to present local & national news, what's on guides, jokes and stories. Children can send in their own stories and pictures to be displayed online.

Historical Maps on Google Earth

http://earth.google.com/
The brilliant Google Earth is now even more useful! The team at Google have just added a selection of historical maps that are available as featured content layers. They come from the David Rumsey Collection and UK teachers will find the 1790 World Globe and the 1790 England & Wales maps particularly interesting. The maps have been pasted to the Google Earth globe so you can type in a modern day place name and fly to the appropriate part on the historical map. It's great to see which towns and cities were important enough to be on the map back then and also amusing to see the change in spellings (e.g. "Leverpool").

Links from the Forums

http://www.primarystuff.co.uk/forum/
The Primary Resources Forums are a good place to find useful links and also post your own favourite sites. Here's a selection of some of the more recent recommendations. Why not join the forum and let us know about your favourite web resources?

Northern_Teacher has posted a link to the great Topmarks site where there is a useful collection of tips for parents hearing their child read.

Smiling Mungo has linked to some really useful SEAL Smart notebook files on the Luton LEA site and also to a whole selection of resources that promote learning through song.

Impis has recommended the excellent Poly software as well as this page on the BGFL site where you can download lots of useful maths programs from Canterbury Cross Primary School.

Christian Creation Story

http://www.k4t.com/eng_creation.htm
This site has a nice animation which will be useful to those who are looking at the Old Testament in RE or studying creation stories in general.

Support Tommy’s The Baby Charity

http://www.tommys.org/
Friday 10th November is the day that Primary Resources has chosen as its official “Support Tommy’s The Baby Charity” campaign day.

Did you know?
• One in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage;
• Over 100,000 women lose their babies each year;
• One in 182 babies is stillborn, half of them for no clear medical reason;
• 140 babies are born too small or too soon in the UK each day;
• Two out of three babies who die do so because they are born too small;

Tommy’s believes every baby deserves the best start in life. They are committed to funding medical research and providing pregnancy information to help more mums and dads through a healthy pregnancy and birth.

Tommy’s is our official site charity. We would really appreciate it if you could please join us in supporting Tommy’s, especially over the next few days.

There are lots of ways you can give to this very important cause…
• You can donate online using the secure server at the Tommy’s website or make a donation by telephone or post
• You can support Tommy’s as you spend. Click here for details.
• You can also recycle your used ink cartridges or foreign coins.

Every donation would be most gratefully received and will help Tommy’s the baby charity carry out its important work.

Site Update: 10th November 2006

It's another big update this week! Thanks to the generosity of our contributors we've been able to add 100 new resources to the main site. See below for full details of the additions.

MATHS: Probability (Activ) / Mixed Fractions (ppt) / 2D Shapes Revision & Diagonals (ppt) / Simple Division with Remainders / Simple Multiplication Problems / Inverse and Division / 2-step Word Problems (+/-) / More Morning Maths Sheets / Calculating Perimeters (ppt) / Adding 3 or 4 Numbers / Multiplication Arrays (Smart) / Units and Conversions / 3D Shapes / Place Value Follow Me / 6x Tables (ppt) / 7x Tables (ppt) / Counting 1-20 (ppt) / Counting 1-10 (ppt) / Number Wordsearch (ppt) / Money Alphabet (ppt) / Aliens Maths Targets / Shape Vocabulary / Odd and Even Numbers Investigation / Multiplication (lots of) / Sharing Counters / Counting to 10 / Analogue and Digital Time (Smart) / 4 Times Table (on Number Square)
ENGLISH: ch and sh Sorting Activity (Smart) / c and ch Sorting Activity (Smart) / c or ch Sounds / The Alphabet (ppt) / Initial Blends (ppt) / First 100 Words Lotto / Spelling Pictures (Handman Replacement) (Smart) / Past, Present and Future Verb Tenses (ppt) / Personification (ppt) / -dge Words / Contractions / Compound Words (ppt) / ee Words (ppt) / -le Words (ppt) / -ous Words (ppt) / Statements and Questions / Capital Letters and Full Stops / Letter Template / Literacy Checklist / Handwriting Blank / -ll Words / Sort -ck Words / Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Characters / Apostrophes (ppt) / o-e- Words / f Sheet / -est Words / -and Words / Story Planner / Writing Checklists / Other Words for Walked / Other Words for Said
SCIENCE: Sources of Light / Sense : What Can You See? (Flash) / What Can You See? Worksheet / Eating a Balanced Diet (ppt)
ICT: Unit 6D (Searching the Internet) Planning & Tasks / What I can do in Word
HISTORY: Bonfire Night (Smart) / Fire of London (Smart) / Guy Fawkes / Roman Roads / The Celtic Rebellion: Boudicca / The Celtica Rebellion: Seutonius / Mummification / Romans True or False? / Viking Quest Website / Tudors Introduction (Smart) / Henry VIII / Henry VIII's Problems / Henry VIII's Problems and Solutions / Tudor Explorers
GEOGRAPHY: Global Warning Scenario Cards / Facts about Africa
RE: The Trimurti (ppt) / Choices Lesson 1: St Alban (ppt) / Choices Lesson 2: Ruth (ppt) / The Five Pillars of Islam (ppt)
LANGUAGES: Spanish: Colour Cards, Numbers, Class Labels, Classroom Items / French: Christmas Sudoku / Colours Game (ppt)
P.S.H.E.: PSHE Posters (A4 Versions)
OTHER: Treats / What to do When I'm Done / Transfer List / Learning Logs / WALT, WILF, TIB / Behaviour Posters (A4 Versions)
ASSEMBLY: Heroes (Class Assembly)

Poetryclass & Poetry Zone

http://www.poetryclass.net/
It's easy to forget about sites like this one as it's been around for a few years now. poetryclass was created by the Poetry Society using funding from the DfES. It's an excellent resource that provides support and ideas for teachers who want to teach about poetry in a fun, dynamic and creative way.

There's lots of lesson plans on the website that have been created by poets with considerable experience of working in schools as well as a wonderful 'A Poem a Term' resource written by Roger Stevens.

[Talking of Roger Stevens... Have you visited his Poetry Zone website? It contains lots of useful resources for teachers, interviews with top poets and provides a showcase of students' work - http://www.poetryzone.co.uk/]

REonline

http://www.reonline.org.uk/
KS1Teacher recommended this site during a discussion in the Primary Resources Forums recently. REonline features an extensive database of Internet resources that you can browse by theme or search by keyword. There's also mini-sites on People of Faith and Places of Worship. Other content includes TV listings, a directory of essential RE contacts & information (such as details of your LEA's RE advisor) and an RE self-evaluation kit.

PEEP and the Big Wide World

http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/
This site is lots of fun. It's based on the US TV show of the same name and is designed to help introduce basic science concepts to very young children. There's a great collection of interactive games on the site, a huge collection of activities that parents can do with their children (or that Early Years teachers can use in the classroom), an episode of the show to watch online and several colouring pages.

Grammarman!

http://www.grammarmancomic.com/
Brian Boyd's excellent 'Grammarman Comic' was created for ESL students but is equally suitable for primary level learners. In the comic the hero Grammarman defends Verbo City from the enemies of grammar. The first four adventures see Grammarman tackle careless mistakes, uncountable nouns, missing punctuation and anagrams. The episodes either be viewed in traditional strip form or as narrated movies. It's well worth checking out and I'm looking forward to reading more adventures in the future.

A3 Poster Pack Printing

I've already had lots of nice comments about Joanne Nalton's great PSHE and Behaviour A3 Poster Packs that went on the site today. A few people have experienced problems printing them. If you've not got an A3 printer in school then you can reduce most of the posters down to A4 by using this option when you print them out...



I'll look at putting on PDF versions of the posters, already reduced down to A4, in the update next week.

Site Update: 3rd November 2006

We've added 110 new resources to the main website this week and 26 new images to the photograph section. Full details are below. Many thanks to everyone who sent in material for inclusion this time around.

MATHS: Probability Statements / 9 Teddies & 3 Boxes Problem (Smart) / Length Conversion WWtbaM (ppt) / Money Place Value (ppt) / Ratio and Proportion Problems / Ratio and Proportion Problem Cards / Averages Activities / Ordering Numbers / Ordering Decimals / Double and Halve Decimals / Maths Dictionary / Number Machine / Improper Fractions Y5 T1 wk 4 LA (ppt) / Fractions and Decimals Fractions Y5 T1 wk 4 :A (ppt) / Tenths and Hundredths Y5 T1 wk5 LA (ppt) / Ordering Fractions / Percentages, Fractions & Decimals / Converting Percentages / Converting Measurements / Mean, Median, Mode & Range / Counting On and Back (Number Sequences) (ppt) / 4 in a Row Tables Games (Smart) / Money Problems (ppt) / Measuring Length (cm/m) (ppt) / Rules for Expanded Column Addition (ppt) / Rules for Subtraction Using Partitioning (ppt) / Sudoku Puzzles (ppt) / Matching Fractions Cards
ENGLISH: ore, oor & or words / Simple, Compound & Complex Sentences (ppt) / Journalism Vocab / CVC Middle "u" / Adding ing (Smart) / Punctuating Simple Sentences / Capital Letters (Names) / Where Does the Comma Go? (ppt) / Rhyming Words (Smart) / Playscripts: Jack and Jill, Hey Diddle Diddle, The Playground, I Spy / Plurals Rule Chart / How to Bake a Cake (Smart) / Space Story (ppt) / Space Story Word Bank / Fairy Tales (ppt) / Fairy Tales Word Bank / My New Pet (ppt) / My New Pet Word Bank / Ingredients for a Great Story / Famous Authors: Roald Dahl (ppt) / Features of a Biography / Halloween Words Sheet
SCIENCE: Plants (ppt) / Living Things (ppt) / Plants Project Ideas / Earth & Beyond Words / Healthy Words
HISTORY: Roman Dinner Time / The Roman Army / The Evolution of Transport / The Reformation / Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot (ppt)
GEOGRAPHY: Capitals Quiz / Water Usuage Spreadsheet (xls) / Local River Study Questions / River Words
ICT: A3 ICT Posters (x3)
ART: Aztec Art (ppt)
D&T: Lighting It Up Booklet (A5 Version)
LANGUAGES: French: In the Garden (ppt) / French: Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes (Alternate Version) / French: Number Wordsearches / French: Days Worksheet / French: Months Worksheet / French: Animals Read & Draw / French: Animal Masks
RE: Bible References / Questions About Jesus / What is a Mosque? / What is a Synagogue?
PE: Hockey Skills
ASSEMBLY: Chinese New Year Class Assembly / People Who Help Us Class Assembly / Playground Games & Rhymes Class Assembly / Electrical Safety Assembly
PHSE: Emotions (ppt) / Different Kinds of Intelligence (ppt) / What Makes a Good Listener (ppt) / A3 PHSE Posters (x52)
OTHER: Certificates: 100% Effort (x6), 100% Attendance (x9), Improved Classroom Behaviour (x8), Being Helpful (x8), Personal Goal (boys) (x11), Excellent Student (x12), Nice Person (x8), Kind & Thoughtful (x8), Star Pupil (x8), Personal Goal (girls) (x11), Good Behaviour (x8), Superstar (x8), Neat Work (x4), Tried to be Good (x8), Working Hard (x10), Improving Behaviour (x8) / A3 Behaviour Posters (x17)
PHOTOS: Geography: Seasons Autumn (15) / Classroom Display Ideas: Foundation (6), English (2), Art (1), D&T (1), Science (1)

English Spelling Problems

http://www.englishspellingproblems.co.uk/
This is a fascinating little site that explores the problems of spelling English words. It's been produced by Masha Bell, who has also written a book on the subject. Teachers will find the extensive word lists on the site extremely useful and there's also lots of other interesting information about spelling. For example the author tells us that English is unique as no other European language has more than 1000 unpredictable spellings. The history section sheds some light of exactly why our spelling system is so chaotic.

Happy Birthday to Us! (Again)

Primary Resources is eight years old this month! Many thanks to everyone who has supported the site since November 1998 by contributing resources and helping the site in other ways. Special thanks go to our main site sponsor, RM for providing free hosting for the site since 2002. The support is most appreciated and has helped build Primary Resources into a major source for lesson plans, teaching ideas and other resources for teachers all over the world.

Some statistics for you... during October 2006 Primary Resources responded to 58.5 million hits, had over 8 million page views, 690 thousand visitors and used almost 840 GB of bandwidth.

Free Handwriting Pack

http://www.stabilo.co.uk/handwriting
Teacher Caroline Buggins has emailed me to let me know about the free handwriting pack you can send off for using the Stabilo pens website:

"I went online, filled in my details and I have my pack already! It's got 7 lesson plans in it, and also a section on how to teach handwriting to Left Handed children - which is not something I have considered before. Have only used one lesson with my children so far and they enjoyed it, so all in all I am really impressed."

Thanks for letting me know about it, Caroline. I'm always looking for useful sites to mention in the blog.