Teaching Themes : Creative Curriculum Resources
Stuck for ideas for your next creative curriculum topic? Then take a look at Teaching Themes.
Another project by Mark Warner, it contains lots of ideas and resources linked to particular themes. Each theme has cross-curricular activity ideas, free downloadable resources, printables for your class displays, examples of educational videos related to the theme, links to other relevant sites and more!
It’s an excellent resource. Go take a look at : http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/themes/
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Young Science Investigators Project Kit from BP
The Young Science Investigators (YSI): Project Kit is a free interactive Science resource for 7-11 year olds from the BP Educational Service. It invites pupils to become Young Science Investigators, using the cartoon characters Beepy, Dev and Kate with a focus on science at work in the real world and scientific enquiry skills.
The kit is based around three curriculum topics : Electricity, Forces and Materials.
The kit contains practical, hands-on activities, animations and worksheets for pupil use. It also contains guidance for teachers, lesson plans and curriculum links to both KS1 and KS2 as well as the First and Second Level of the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence
It’s a cute resource with some useful activities for students to use. You need to register with the BP site to access it, but it’s free to do so.
Find out more at : www.bp.com/bpes/ysiprojectkit
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Vocabulary and Spelling City
Spellingcity.com is a free spelling website that supports the teaching of spelling. SpellingCity provides students with a simple online way to take a practice spelling test. Students can hear the word being read out and then type it into a box which checks the spelling.
Teachers can use lists of words from a variety of different word banks as well as create their own lists of words to use in the tests.
For teachers and students who want more, SpellingCity has a Premium Membership which provides additional games and features such as automated student record keeping so spelling tests can be taken on the computer.
If you want a short guide on how you could use SpellingCity, the site has some resources for teachers which explain some of the features including a video guide. There’s also plenty of ideas and resources for teaching vocabulary and spelling here.
Take a look for yourself at : http://www.spellingcity.com
Read MorePrimaryWall – collaboration for schools
Another site to add to the list of wallwisher-type websites – Primary Wall is a web-based sticky note tool designed for schools that allows pupils and teachers to work together in real-time. No sign up or sign in is needed to use it. http://primarywall.com/
Unlike some of the other Walls out there, PrimaryWall was concieved by a teacher and is built for schools so they deliberately kept things simple, fast and user friendly. The font size of the notes is quite large when typed to make it easier for younger users. Some lesson plans and ideas for teachers are provided on the site.
PrimaryWall is free to use at the basic level, with a premium version available with more features such as Walls that last longer than 30 days, the ability to change font and background and easy embedding.
The site looks great, and Primary/Elementary teachers who like the idea of something like Wallwisher should definitely check out PrimaryWall.
Read MoreMen In Primary – update
Back in October, I wrote about an initiative that was trying to attract more men into becoming primary school teachers. This involved the production of three films celebrating and promoting Men in Primary Schools. The films were shown at several events in London last year.
If you are interested, those films are now available online on YouTube. You can view them here.
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Learning with Visualisers Video
Discover the benefits of using a visualiser with primary pupils, along with useful tips and resources in this handy video from Teachers TV.
This video shows how you can use a visualiser to take photographs, how to create videos for pupils to reference, and how to use a visualiser to encourage pupil self assessment.
Year 3 teacher and ICT Coordinator Dave Orritt travels to another primary school to get see how they use visualisers to aid teaching and learning. He observes a Year 4 teacher using a visualiser in maths and art lessons, including showing a video to the pupils, and using it to help pupils assess their own work.
After getting advice on using the technology from fellow teachers, Dave heads back to his own school to see how he can use one effectively in his own lessons.
Thanks to ICT in Havering for the heads up.
Read MoreLoads of Smart Notebook Files
A quick plug for the Wichita Instructional Technology department who have put together an awesome collection of Smart Notebook files.
According to one twitterer (Kelly Reseigh) This site has been dubbed the “Smartboard Motherlode” by some schools.. and it’s hard to argue with that description.
The site contains loads of Elementary / Primary (K-6) Smartbotebook files for Literacy, Maths, Science and Social Studies. There are also some Senteo / Smart Response Quizzes. I lost count trying to see how many there were.
It’s well worth bookmarking the site if you are ever in need of some Smart Notebook files. Thanks to the Wichita Staff for being so generous and sharing their resources.
Algodoo – 2D Physics Simulator
I’ve been a big fan of some of the real world physics games that have appeared on the PC in recent years, and also on the iPhone, making use of its touchscreen.
One of my favourite pieces of software is called Phun, which is a brilliant 2D physics sandbox for PC, Linux and Mac. You can hand draw shapes, pin them in place, join them together with chains and springs and much more. You can create some very complicated systems.
Phun is freeware, and you can get the latest version from here: www.phunland.com.
Phun was developed by Emil Ernerfeldt in his MSc thesis project at the Department of Computing Science at Umeå university, Sweden. Emil now works for Algoryx Simulation AB – and he has continued to work on Phun – and has now produced a commercial version designed for education market called Algodoo which you can get from www.algodoo.com
As well as springs and gears, Algodoo also deals in light and optics – which starts to make it a rival to other software such as Crocodile Physics.
They’ve produced plenty of ready-made scenes that you can download and try out, as well as lesson plans which cover KS1 up to KS4.
Pricewise it looks very good- a single license is about €29, with bulk deals bringing that down quite a lot. You can also get a trial version of Algodoo as well to see what if can do.
Phun is still freeware – so try that to see if you like it. If you don’t want all the bells and whistles then stick with Phun.
It is a very cute bit of software and works brilliantly on an interactive whiteboard – but would also be good with a graphics tablet.
Read MorePrimary Science Keyword Bingo Game
Heres a link to a great lesson starter/plenary idea from the ICT Games website. Science Bingo. It uses the Primary Science vocab words from the Kent Scheme of work, which will suit most Primary Science classes.
Download a pack of Bingo cards to photocopy for the children – then use the Word generator to select words to cross off the bingo grid.
It’s a simple, fun idea to help with keyword recognition.
Thanks to Jason Dilling (@jasondilling) and James (@Wigglemyears) on Twitter for coming up with the resource!
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About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
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