WeeklyWebsiteWeblog

NARS

2012-01-11T00:35:00.002Z

New case studies will be appearing soon on the National Assessment Resource.

The materials will cover the early years, primary, secondary and ASN sectors using Building the Curriculum 5 as a basis for developing the processes of recognising achievement, profiling and reporting.

French support materials

2011-12-13T00:53:00.001Z

French reference materials

This resource contains some basic French grammar for primary teachers. It covers verb forms, nouns, articles, adjectives and language relating to dates, numbers and weather. These reference grammars aim to help primary teachers brush up on the basic rules of the modern language(s) they teach in primary schools.

Christmas maths games and more...

2011-12-03T01:02:00.001Z

TES has some Christmas maths resources to help with end of term maths lessons including a Christmas Countdown game. TES Topics, 12 Games of Christmas. Log in to get the free teaching pack at http://topics.tes.co.uk/#

Lots of Christmas teaching ideas can be found at http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/themes/christmas/ and more at http://www.kirklandneuk.renfrewshire.sch.uk/dl.html?1318199413 when you scroll down the page.

iPlanner for Heinemann Active Maths

2011-11-16T01:00:00.001Z

Video tutorials on using the iPlanner for Heinemann Active Maths are available as follows:

Getting Started:

http://www.abacusevolve-community.co.uk/training/i-planner-video-tutorials-getting-started/

Personalising Plans:

http://www.abacusevolve-community.co.uk/training/i-planner-video-tutorials-personalising-plans/

Evaluating Learning:

http://www.abacusevolve-community.co.uk/training/i-planner-video-tutorials-evaluating-learning/

Interesting ways to use an interactive whiteboard

2011-10-14T00:11:00.000+01:00

56 interesting ways to use an interactive whiteboard in the classroom.

Classics for Kids

2011-09-20T00:51:00.000+01:00

This site, amongst other things, allows you to choose classical music to play in the classroom.

There are also interactive games which allow pupils to compose and learn about music and rhythm.

It includes lesson plans which focus on an individual classical music composer and a selected piece of music, plus radio programmes for primary pupils to listen to.

Education Scotland's Learning Blog

2011-09-11T23:01:00.000+01:00

Education Scotland has launched its new Learning Blog with the idea of highlighting all that is new across all curricular areas including resources, events and news.

One recent item was the work of the National CPD team which can be seen in this short video which gives ideas on how to take your own CPD forward.

SMART Notebook Express and CfE linked notebook resources

2011-08-28T16:10:00.001+01:00

You can find smartboard resources related to the Curriculum for Excellence at http://exchange.smarttech.com/curriculum/curriculum.html You can choose your stage and subject from the drop down menus.

If you have used up your 30 day free trial of smart notebook at home you can now use the SMART Notebook Express web application instead. This is a web-based version of SMART Notebook software which is available to all teachers whether they have a smartboard or not. Teachers can use its interactive lesson delivery and editing features anywhere, without having to download any software. You can use SMART Notebook Express to open lesson files in a browser or download them to a computer. It is available from smarttech.

You can also download the software to your computer too so that you don't have to be online to use it.

Virtual Farm Walk

2011-08-23T22:41:00.001+01:00

The Virtual Farm Walk - like a real farm - is a great place for learning for ages 7-13 and covers curricular areas such as language, maths, geography, art, science and ICT. The Virtual Farm Walk from LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) gives children the chance to understand how farm animals are kept, which machines are used in the countryside and what is done to create and protect animal habitats. There are also supporting task sheets suitable for different age groups.

Seasonal Lesson Plans

2011-08-18T23:35:00.000+01:00

HotChalk's LessonPlansPage has loads of teaching resources including a seasonal lesson plan download page for every month of the year.

TESiboard interactive resources.

2011-06-23T22:44:00.000+01:00

TESiboard has a list of interactive resources covering all areas of the primary curriculum. They include open-ended tools that allow teacher pupil interaction.

STEM science and technology resources

2011-06-11T02:18:00.000+01:00

Links, videos and interactives from the STEM Central website help to introduce engineering and STEM subjects to the curriculum. –Find resources on electric transport, energy-saving houses, water and wind, wave and tide at the STEM website.

New links to Teachers TV

2011-05-25T01:23:00.000+01:00

Along with other organisations, Teachers Media have a licence with the DfE to show all 3500 videos from the Teachers TV archive on the their site. Any links to Teachers TV videos will still work if you replace the URL, for example http://www.teachers.tv/video/12345 should be replaced with: http://www.teachersmedia.co.uk/video/12345

"How to Use" Videos

2011-05-13T23:13:00.001+01:00

You can find lots of videos on how to use the smartboard, Word, Excel etc at http://www.fuuni.com/smart/ with everything from how to get started to creating engaging lesson activities.

Learning resources on Glow for teachers and pupils

2011-04-07T11:37:00.000+01:00

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/learnerresources/index.asp This is a new page which has links to all the learner resources on Glow. There is a wide range of resources from science and debating to resources which support literacy such as Scotland’s Songs, Scotland’s Stories and Knowledge of Language - plus lots more!

Teachers TV to be terminated

2011-03-25T21:52:00.001Z

The Teachers TV contract has been terminated by the Department for Education but all of the 4,000 programmes will continue to be made available online. This will ensure that teachers can continue to access http://www.teachers.tv for practical support, advice and guidance.

Microsoft Office Training

2011-02-28T19:15:00.000Z

Learn how to use Access, Powerpoint, Excel and Word at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/support/support-FX101825174.aspx?CTT=97

Smart Notebook

2011-01-20T01:38:00.000Z

Smart Notebook templates for all subjects and stages can be found here plus other smart board resources at http://www1.center.k12.mo.us/edtech/SB/SB.html

BBC - programmes for schools

2010-12-22T21:36:00.001Z

Podcasts, downloads, audio, video clips and learning resources for primary schools (including teacher's notes) can be downloaded from http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio.

LTScotland resources

2010-12-01T00:51:00.000Z

LTScotland have published a new page with links to all the free resources for learners. Some of them have to be accessed through using a Glow password.

They include The Big Bus, Spark Island, Glow Science, Weather and Climate Change, Purple Mash, The Daily What News, On the Money and lots more.

T2TUK

2010-11-16T23:36:00.001Z

Lots of free resources for co-operative learning on the T2TUK website. Sign in and go to the drop down menu on the last tab at T2TUK Club. You will find training tips, posters, games, articles and freebies.

Curling

2010-11-05T00:13:00.001Z

Primary 7 start curling at Braehead soon. There is a neat website which shows animated curling moves at http://www.curlingbasics.com/ and one for the rules at http://tinyurl.com/yfjvuvm.

No hands to answer questions

2010-10-03T23:17:00.001+01:00

Dylan Wiliam was on BBC2 recently with his education trial The Classroom Experiment which promoted whole class involvement.

One of his ideas was not to put hands up to answer questions but rather to choose names randomly from the class to answer. E.g. put names on lolly sticks and choose one at random to answer any given question. This brought to mind a website I used last session that allows you to pick names randomly. Random name generator can also be downloaded to your desktop for free.

More loop cards

2010-09-17T00:40:00.001+01:00

Easy to make your own spelling loop cards on this website at http://www.senteacher.org/Worksheet/46/Loopcards.xhtml This joins the loop cards already mentioned at Primary Resources for many aspects of maths including fractions money and time.

http://www.brendenisteaching.com/gen/loopcards/ also generates loop cards where you can choose how many cards to have for your class or group.

Outline maps

2010-09-07T20:27:00.000+01:00

Download outline maps of the UK, Europe, the World and much more at http://www.worldatlas.com

Banners

2010-08-30T20:30:00.000+01:00

Image by Cool Text: Free Logos and Buttons - Create An Image Just Like This

Cool Text is a free graphics generator for web pages which also lets you generate printable banners. Simply choose what kind of image you would like, complete the form and you'll have your own poster to print.

Connected

2010-08-17T23:02:00.000+01:00

This term’s Connected magazine, amongst other things, looks at a collaborative project to develop Numeracy skills. New aspects of Glow are also highlighted in this edition.

Back copies of Connected can be accessed at http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/connected/

Meet the author

2010-08-04T15:59:00.000+01:00

The Scottish Book Trust has set up more live weblinks with authors for next session.

You can register your class for events with Philip Pullman or Charlie Higson and you can also access previous web events with other authors such as Michael Rosen, Julia Donaldson and Michael Morpurgo. All include resources to use with your class.

Internet Safety - Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre

2010-07-20T23:00:00.005+01:00

The new Click CEOP app was launched on Facebook last week. By adding this application, Facebook users will have direct access to all the services that sit behind the ClickCeop button which should provide reassurance to every parent with teenagers on the site.

You can add the app and help protect yourself online by clicking on the CEOP fan page at http://www.facebook.com/clickceop

By using the Click CEOP app, you can ‘add the tab’, ‘share the CEOP badge‘ and ‘bookmark the CEOP page’ at http://apps.facebook.com/clickceop

For the first time, CEOP will be running an online surgery in Facebook for parents who may have concerns about their children being online over the summer holidays. The ClickCEOP advisor will be online between 7-8pm on Wednesday 21 July on http://www.facebook.com/ceop to answer queries and questions from parents.

NRICH - Numeracy across the Curriculum

2010-06-27T16:42:00.005+01:00

Lots of active maths and problem solving activities from NRICH. Just type in the Curriculum for Excellence maths outcome number to find an activity related to the outcome.

Scottish Book Trust

2010-06-06T20:20:00.003+01:00

The Scottish Book Trust has two Online Teachers in Residence who take turns to blog each week about their experiences in the classroom.

The site also has a teachers' book group and lots of free classroom resources and teaching tools for language, literacy and Curriculum for Excellence.

Animation

2010-05-17T23:43:00.002+01:00

We have tried lots of animation websites and software over the years.

At the launch of Do-Be today we saw GoAnimate which looks quite straightforward for pupils to make cartoons and animations.

Smart Exchange

2010-05-04T23:29:00.005+01:00

The SMART Learning Marketplace content subscription service has ended and in its place and free to use is the SMART Exchange. This searchable collection of SMART Notebook™ software lesson activities and other resources to use with your SMART Board can be accessed at no cost.

You can even find smart notebook lessons on how to use Glow discussions!

Sumdog

2010-03-28T20:47:00.003+01:00

Sumdog's free maths games are designed to improve numeracy. Although it says that it is targeted at ages 9-13, some of the games could be played by primary 1 or 2.

Sumdog has some similarities to Tutpup but covers 100 numeracy topics split into 10 levels of difficulty. Pupils can chose to answer questions from any topic or level. However, after each game, Sumdog recommends a level based on previous results.

ICT Projects

2010-03-15T02:09:00.004Z

Looking for an ICT project?

Try this free book from ICTinEducation which includes:
87 projects.
10 further resources.
52 applications.
94 contributors.
The benefits of using Web 2.0 applications.
The challenges of using Web 2.0 applications.
How the folk who ran these projects handled the issues...
... And what they recommend you do if you run them.

Fairtrade Fortnight

2010-02-28T21:39:00.003Z

Fairtrade fortnight continues in school this week. Try some of the websites in class from http://delicious.com/kirklandneuk/fairtrade

Powerpoint presentations

2010-02-15T22:57:00.003Z

You can find thousands of powerpoints at http://www.pppst.com/themes.html . Find out what they say about Scotland from the dozens there. Further down the page there are also many weblinks for pupils.

There are also loads of templates to help you make your own powerpoint presentations.

Internet Safety Week

2010-02-05T16:22:00.003Z

Childnet's Know IT All for Primary Schools has been especially designed for primary school staff to help them understand important E-safety issues and how to help young pupils get the most out of the internet. http://www.childnet-int.org/KIA/primary/ This is one of the websites we will be using for Internet Safety Week from Monday 8th - Friday 12th February. Find more at http://delicious.com/kirklandneuk/internetsafety

Loop cards or Follow Me cards

2010-01-24T11:38:00.004Z

Primary resources has lots of loop cards (or follow me cards) to download for free on their website.

There are various resources covering:
Doubles & Halves
Addition & Subtraction
Multiplication & Division
Fractions, Decimals & Percentages
Money
Time
http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/maths/mathsA2.htm

Wordbuilder

2010-01-17T13:29:00.003Z

Neat little wordbuilder game at http://www.langtolang.com/games/word-builder/ which times you to build as many words as you can from the letters given. It gives you your score and shows the answers at the end.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-22T22:37:00.007Z

Primary 1 had fun listening to personlised messages from Santa today broadcast from his home in the Portable North Pole. He will send you a message using the PNP console, a technological breakthrough that makes real-time communication with the North Pole possible! http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/guest/pRX1SOAOfiK9wJ24xKOeuQ

Homecoming week on PhotoPeach

2009-12-06T22:59:00.003Z

Since the demise of Bubbleshare, I have been looking for another free way of showing slideshows on blogs. PhotoPeach lets you upload photos and music and also gives you a certain amount of free music to play with your slideshows. For a small monthly payment you can uypgrade to their premium account which gives more upload space and a bigger variety of music to choose from.

Here are some photos from our Homecoming week celebrations.

Sing Up

2009-11-22T22:07:00.004Z

Sing Up is the national singing programme for schools in England. It is led by Youth Music, the UK's largest children's music charity and aims to build the confidence and expertise of primary school teachers and musicians so they can lead and support children's singing activities. The website has loads of songs and resources to download, with words which can be displayed on the interactive whiteboard.

Schools outwith England can register and download:
• Hundreds of songs
• Lesson plans and activities
• Warm-ups and workouts
• Guides and tutorials

at http://www.singup.org/songbank

Scottish Learning Festival 2009

2009-11-13T23:01:00.004Z

The presentations and videos from this year's Scottish Learning Festival are now available on the LTScotland website. You can watch videos of the keynote speeches and download from a large choice of presentations.

Maths on Teachers' TV

2009-11-02T23:23:00.004Z

Realistic problem-solving scenarios are used to explain the basics of maths in these programmes for pupils from Teachers' Tv. In each episode, the crew encounters challenges that can only be overcome by finding out about a new area of maths.

There are 20 videos in this series of The Number Crew, a primary series which uses realistic problem solving scenarios and animated characters to explain the basics of maths. Covering topics such as division, multiplication, multi-sided and 3D shapes (plus many many more) these videos are a good way to introduce pupils to basic maths ideas.

Wilderdom

2009-10-27T23:50:00.004Z

Wilderdom is a team building project from Australia.

Their website has some good ideas for using at circle time.

There is also advice on outdoor education.

Teachers' TV @ Kirklandneuk

2009-10-04T20:14:00.005+01:00

Teachers' TV is now embedded in our school website. You can choose from a variety of programmes for Primary teachers such as Collaborative Activities, Primary ICT – Advanced Whiteboard Techniques, KS1/2 – As Easy as CPD or go to the resources page for programmes to use with pupils in class.

SEN interactive resources for IWB

2009-09-20T21:45:00.003+01:00

Lots of SEN resources for interactive whiteboards from NGfL CYMRU can be found here for all age groups.

My Experiences and Outcomes online tool

2009-09-05T22:11:00.004+01:00

My experiences and outcomes is an online tool from LTScotland to help with forward planning.
It allows you to browse the CfE experiences and outcomes across all curricular areas and save as you go. You can then organise and save them into your own personalised groups and add notes. You must be logged into Glow in order to save online. They can also be downloaded to your desktop.

Find websites linked to CfE maths outcomes on delicious

2009-08-26T13:05:00.007+01:00

Try typing in a CfE maths outcome at http://delicious.com/RenfrewshireMaths and websites linked to the outcome will show up. You can type capital or lower case letters, with or without the hyphen but there must not be a space in the outcome code eg: MNU2-22A or mnu222a

Delicious.com is an online bookmarking service. There are already around 400 websites included in http://delicious.com/RenfrewshireMaths and if you would like a website added please email it to sronnie906@kirklandneuk.renfrewshire.sch.uk or if you have your own delicious account just add for:RenfrewshireMaths as a tag.

You can view a list of tags used down the right hand side of the webpage.

Open Office

2009-06-21T14:04:00.004+01:00

Renfrewshire local authority is moving over to using PCs instead of Macs and we will be using Open Office software. Tutorials for Open Office including Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw and Base are available online along with a Pictorial version from Inpics which may be more suitable for pupils.

Sudoku

2009-05-29T08:37:00.005+01:00

Instructions for learning Sudoku can be found at Sudoku Daily. You can also play online at MathsNet.

LTScotland on iTunes

2009-05-15T20:25:00.006+01:00

Learning and Teaching Scotland's videos are now available on iTunes U
download them, organize your own playlists and sync to your MP4 player or phone to enjoy them anywhere. The videos are mainly aimed at teachers and other education professionals, and focus on developing and supporting 3-18 education and Curriculum for Excellence. They share the latest research and good practice in learning and teaching.

Class clips

2009-04-29T17:05:00.006+01:00

More than 2,000 clips from BBC programmes on Learning Zone Broadband are ready to play in the classroom. All you have to do is enter a subject, a topic or a keyword and lots of BBC video clips are ready to show to your class.

Google - Similar Images

2009-04-21T21:26:00.003+01:00

Have you ever searched on Google images and found only one image that just wasn't quite right?
Similar Images on Google now allows you to search for images using pictures rather than words. Click the "Similar images" link under an image to find other images that look like it.

Internet4Classrooms

2009-03-29T23:53:00.003+01:00

Although Internet4Classrooms is an american website it has loads of links for every primary stage, especially for maths and language.

Try clicking on Skill Builders for a particular Grade and you will find maths and language sites linked to specific areas eg money in maths or phonics in language.

TJ maths and CfE

2009-03-15T19:46:00.005Z

TJ maths has put on their own slant and tied up the curricular content of Curriculum for Excellence with the 5-14 maths strands. It includes some suggestions for alternative approaches to the indtroduction of a topic.

At the moment you can download levels 1, 2 and 3 with others to come soon.

Interactive number squares

2009-02-23T00:18:00.003Z

Some of the staff have been on an in-service course with Tom Renwick and saw the
100+board in action.

We have also been using number squares from primaryresources, splatsquare and interactive number charts from apples4theteacher.

Another one worth trying is Crickweb’s number square which has some unique aspects to it.

Online stopwatch/Count down

2009-02-15T17:41:00.004Z

You can find a selection of timers at online stopwatches. Useful for counting down a set time for a task or as a stopwatch on the interactive whiteboard.

Glow free resources

2009-02-08T23:29:00.003Z

Did you know that as a user of Glow, you have access to a huge amount of resources? At the National Site you will find resources (mentioned in an earlier post) which include lots of free images to download. They are copyright free for educational use.

Scottish Probationers' Website

2009-02-01T21:22:00.003Z

The scottish probationers' website has been relaunched with a new design. Teachers should now find it easier to share information, resources and practice without having to login through the GTCS website.

CoolMath4Kids

2009-01-25T23:35:00.004Z

Try CoolMath4Kids for lots of maths games covering all aspects of the curriculum.
Includes lessons such as How addition works and How multiplication works

Writing fun

2009-01-11T16:07:00.005Z

read.write.think is an interactive website that supports literacy learning. There are good lesson plans with activities and resources for reading and writing for all stages. eg acrostic poems, persuasive writing and lots more.

Writing Fun is another literacy site with good ideas and resources. It uses text organisers to help with the writing process.

Teachers.tv

2009-01-07T08:41:00.004Z

Teachers TV starts the year with some invaluable classroom resources, all of which can be used in class with pupils. There are plenty of varied programme topics to choose from.

Teachers love SMART boards

2008-12-21T21:53:00.003Z

This blog give you all you need to know about Smart boards including training, tips and tricks, websites and lesson plans.

Using Google Earth

2008-12-07T18:12:00.004Z

Once Google Earth has been downloaded onto your computer it can be used on the smartboard for class use. Use the pointer to fly round the world and zoom in to relevant areas. You can tour cities in 3D, access wikipedia entries and geo-tagged photos. You can find cross-curricular tasks at the Classroom Google Earth wiki

IXL maths

2008-12-04T21:58:00.003Z

IXL maths advertises itself by saying "Practice makes perfect, and IXL makes maths practice fun. With unlimited maths questions in more than 1,000 topics, students improve their skills and confidence and always have new challenges to meet."

It has detailed graded maths questions which are easy to find and you can use 20 questions every day for free without subscribing.

2008-11-29T23:53:00.004Z

Download smart notebook lesson plans and resources for all areas of the curriculum at smarttech

2008-11-09T01:04:00.004Z

The National Strategies are professional development programmes for Early Years, Primary and Secondary school practitioners in England. This new website supports teachers to improve the quality of learning and teaching. Select content and resources via the navigation or use the search box. There are also online groups and discussions.

Connected magazine 22

2008-10-26T20:01:00.002Z

The latest edition of Connected magazine is now online. Highlights from this issue include features about 'On the money' and news from the Scottish Learning Festival 2008

Scottish Learning Festival

2008-10-08T22:43:00.004+01:00

The four keynote addresses from the Scottish Learning Festival have been video recorded and can be viewed online . Fiona Hyslop, Professor Richard Teese, Charles Leadbeater and Ellen Moir's speeches can be heard again plus all their interviews with Heather Reid.

BBC Podcasts

2008-09-18T22:29:00.003+01:00

Podcasts of the new BBC series from Something to Think About and Time to Move are now available. Click on these links where you will be able to download or subscribe to the podcasts.

For Something to Think About: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/stta/

And for Time to Move: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/ttm/

You can browse the Teachers' Notes at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio/teachersnotes/

Glow |Bulletin

2008-09-03T16:16:00.005+01:00

'Glowing' is a monthly roundup of Glow news items. It includes key areas of work from the Glow Team, as well as various updates and information. Send your email to sign up for the bulletin

BBC Scotland Education

2008-06-29T00:19:00.005+01:00

Visit BBC Scotland’s website for Primary Schools. It includes links to websites for citizenship, health, history, geography, music and technology. There is also a link to the BBC radio clips library from WW2. Many pages include teachers’ notes on the left hand navigation bar.

del.icio.us and Glow

2008-06-22T13:13:00.007+01:00

Don't forget our del.icio.us account for finding websites to use in class. You can also add tags of your own if you wish. Try the search box at the top and type in a tag word.

There are now some good websites on Glow ready for free use. Log into Glow then go to the left hand navigation bar:

National Site > Resources in Focus tab > and you will find The Big Bus for infants; Spark Island for English, Maths and Science; the Guardian newspaper for pupils and lots more.

TeacherTube and YouTube

2008-06-16T01:09:00.003+01:00

As YouTube seems to be blocked by most local authorities because of the risk of pupils viewing inappropriate material, Ictopus has posted a link to instructions on how to download videos from YouTube at home so that they can be viewed again in school without visiting the YouTube site.

TeacherTube is a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill. Check out the top favourites.

Tutpup and Maths Playground

2008-06-08T23:35:00.006+01:00

Earlier this year the pupils took part in World Maths Day where they played mental arithmetic games against other pupils from all over the world. Tutpup is run along similar lines with competitive games that help children learn and gain confidence with Maths, English and other basic skills and knowledge.

MathPlayground has lots of good maths resources for the whiteboard including cuisennaire rods, measuring angles, area and perimeter, percentages, fractions and loads more.

ViralVinnie is the BBC's new website for KS1, KS2 and KS3 with games to help improve Maths, Language and Science.

Educated Fish

2008-06-01T00:04:00.006+01:00

Every week, Ictopus magazine recommends a variety of lessons through ICT and this week highlighted a great website which is a one stop shop for links to all areas of the curriculum. The sites have been chosen by teachers as very useful for learning and teaching. Educated Fish covers all areas of the curriculum for ages 5-14.

Topics

2008-05-26T23:52:00.002+01:00

This website from Shambles holds around 1500 websites grouped into many topics. Although designed for the international schools in S.E. Asia there are many of use to UK schools including mini-beasts, volcanoes, the rainforest and loads more.

Spelling

2008-05-20T16:10:00.005+01:00

Some good websites this week to practise spelling. SpellingCity.com lets you type in your words, then teaches you the words and lets you play games with the words. It also contains over 30,000 words, including plurals, contractions, past and future tenses and uses a real person's voice to say the word and use the word in a sentence.

Sightwords with Samson includes lots of classroom activities for the smartboard and also lets pupils learn, build and identify words before taking a quiz.

Internet Safety

2008-05-11T15:59:00.003+01:00

The Golden Rules for internet safety have been in the news this week.
Becta has produced a free publication: Signposts to safety: Teaching e-safety at Key Stages 1 and 2 and there are games for ages 5-7 and ages 8-12 from ThinkUknow to reinforce internet safety.

Maths games

2008-03-24T23:39:00.003Z

Derek Robertson from LTScotland and
Consolarium appeared on tv last week extolling the virtues of games based learning.

Try out some of the games at Super Maths World which provide online interactive maths games and activities for all ages. Players engage in mathematical challenges against alien creatures where subject knowledge and fast mental arithmetic is critical to success. Activities are designed so that they cannot be beaten by guess work.

World Maths Day

2008-03-16T23:47:00.005Z

Kirklandneuk earned a prize during World Maths Day which means that we can use the mathletics software free of charge until August.

Mathletics is a complete mathematics learning platform, including both the arithmetic game used in World Maths Day and interactive curriculum activities covering most topics and all year group levels.

Pupils can sign in using their World Maths Day usernames and passwords. See Mrs Ronnie if you have lost your password.

Free notebook and flipchart files to use on your whiteboard

2008-03-09T19:42:00.004Z

Looking for a lesson to use on your smartboard? You can search and download at smarttech

If you aren’t sure how to use the smart notebook tools there are some short videos from Mgrid which introduces the smart notebook software.

If you download the activstudio flipchart viewer from Longfield you will then be able to search and download Promethean flipchart files from Prometheanplanet on the Dell laptops.

Interactive smartboards (2)

2008-03-02T23:41:00.004Z

Even though some classes only have a projector and not a smartboard (you may have next session!) you might like to read

33 ways to use your interactive whiteboard, which has some good ideas.

A quick reference tool for using the floating tools toolbar on the smartboard can be found at http://www.lexington1.net/technology/instruct/technologyguide/survival%20guideinfo/smartboard/quick_reference_floatingtools.pdf

Lots of sites for using with a projector or smartboard for infants maths and language can be found at http://www.juliethompson.com/SMART.html

Creating comic strips online

2008-02-25T00:18:00.004Z

This article states how the medium of comic strips can develop literacy. And the MFLE website has some hints and tips for making and using comic strips. Quite a few comic strip sites have been added to our del.icio.us recently, the latest being Pixton at http://www.pixton.com/home where you can create a comic or a whole book and show it online.
At http://www.adgame-wonderland.de/type/bayeux.php there is a historical comic ‘construction kit’ based on the style of the Bayeux tapestry. Then there are tutorials for Sketchcast at http://sketchcast.com/category/Tutorial/ and Storytime from Dr Seuss at http://www.seussville.com/games_hb/storymaker/story_maker.html . Create your own comic strips at http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ and especially for children the comic creator at http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/comic/

The children at the homework club seem to like Toondoo best at http://www.toondoo.com/Login.toon?param=log

Larry Ferlazzo's ESL website

2008-02-16T22:13:00.005Z

Larry Ferlazzo teaches English as a second language and his website has hundreds of links for ESL pupils from beginners to more advanced.

It also contains a teachers' page which has loads of links useful for teaching all areas of the curriculum. It is definitely worth a look at http://larryferlazzo.com/englishdetails.html#websites

Interactive Whiteboard Resources

2008-02-09T21:37:00.000Z

It is probably worth highlighting this site again, as the bank of free to use tools and resources created for teachers who are teaching with an interactive whiteboard is being extended all the time.

There are help sheets on how to make Smart notebook teaching resources and includes interactive whiteboard resources for all areas of the curriculum.

SCRAN

2008-02-04T22:45:00.000Z

Was reminded of Scran today with their January newsletter. I have been thinking of trying out some of the upper school on Scribble which is Scran's protected area for blogging. If anyone wants to try it out with their class please let me know.

BBC video clips

2008-01-28T23:28:00.000Z

BBC Learning Zone has free video clips to download for all areas of the curriculum. Try searching by subject and topic or by keyword.

One page Web 2.0 tool guides

2008-01-28T23:15:00.001Z

Useful one page guides to Web 2.0 tools such as Flickr, Blogs. Wikis, Netvibes, online surveys and online mapping from Tim Davies.

Glow

2008-01-20T00:38:00.001Z

Did you manage to log on to Glow and read your email? This is just the start of collaborative learning! :)

And to start with...

2008-01-19T18:51:00.001Z

Many years ago when we first got the internet in school I used to put a website of the week on the staffroom noticeboard.

Nowadays when I find a new website I post it to del.icio.us and add it to the school website and then promptly forget about most of them!

I thought I would start this blog in order to highlight the best websites I find so that perhaps others in the staffroom can try them out too and perhaps highlight some of their own favourites.

To start off this week, I am posting a flashcard website that I have found useful for French vocabulary , but if you look at the website you will find other ideas such as tables, flags, spelling, etc – anything that you might learn from using flashcards. Good for using with a whiteboard too.

You can make your flashcards and put a link to them onto your class webpage. Let me know by clicking in the comments box below if you get a chance to use it, as maybe others can use your flashcards too!