Site Update: 29th June 2007

Thanks to the generosity of contributors, I've been able to add 35 new resources to the website this week. Full details (together with section links) are given here.

Site Update: 23rd June 2007

I've added 37 new resources to the main website this week. Full details are given here. Thanks to everyone who sent in contributions this time!

Site Update: 16th June 2007

I've added 30 new resources to the main website this week and 13 new images to the photograph section. Full details are given here. Thanks to everyone who sent in contributions this time!

Free Brighouse Booklet

(Click here for the link)
Interested teachers can request a free copy of top educationalist Tim Brighouse's new book, "How Successful Head Teachers Survive and Thrive" from the RM website. The booklet is produced for a good cause, to support Ted Wragg's Memorial Fund and help the education of disadvantaged young people in Sheffield, Ted's hometown.

National Maritime Museum Resources

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/nav.00500300l
The National Maritime Museum website has some excellent resources for Key Stage 1 and 2. Younger students can read about Trim, the ships' cat or find out about the myths and legends behind the stars. There's a section on safety at sea for older pupils as well as resources for the Tudors and the Vikings.

Fact Monster

http://www.factmonster.com/
This US site (from education publishers Pearson) is great for researching facts and figures. The advertising makes it a little unfriendly for unsupervised student use, but it's still excellent for finding material for lesson presentations. Some interesting sections I've just been looking at: World's Tallest Buildings, World Atlas and Map Library, Flags from Around the World and Country Statistics. The site even helps answer the tricky question, "How many countries are there in the world?"

Site Update: 8th June 2007

Over 60 new resources have been added to the main website this week. Full details are given here. Thanks to everyone who sent in contributions this time!

Thanks also to everyone who took the time to complete the Primary Resources Survey. The responses have been very useful and I've made several small changes to the site this week to incorporate some of the suggestions that have been made. If you haven't yet filled in the questionnaire then you can still do so by clicking on this link. The draw for the £25 Amazon voucher will be made at the end of next week.

Panoramic Seaside Pictures

http://www.panoramas.dk/
Tom Craven kindly sent me details of this website that contains some great panoramic photographs. It's got a fair amount of advertising on so it's not something that you'd let students on unsupervised. There are some really nice (seaside) images for Unit 4 of the KS1 Geography scheme here and here.

[Other 360 VR images I've found myself include: Humber Seaside Panoramas, Virtual Blackpool, Virtual Scarborough, Cornwall and Scotland]

Roald Dahl Day

(Click here for link)
It's not far off (in terms of teaching weeks at least!) so it's worth thinking ahead to this year's Roald Dahl Day. The 13th September 2007 is once again the date to celebrate the work of this great storyteller. The link at the top of this article points to the new 2007 official site. Resources and ideas should be appearing there sometime during June but if you want to start planning then check out the 2006 event pages.

Other useful pages: RoaldDahlFans.com, ShowMe.uk, Primary Resources Book Ideas

DirectgovKids

http://kids.direct.gov.uk/
The DirectgovKids site has been getting lots of positive reviews recently on our forums. The site has been designed to teach students about the people and places in their local community. Children explore the buildings in the Directgov world, learning about topics through games and animations. Themes covered include behaviour & community, democracy, the environment and health. The teachers' area is useful with direct links to individual activities, lesson plans and activity ideas. There's also a good collection of other interesting sites to visit.