Here are details of two new teaching resource sites that I’ve discovered recently, both aimed at primary teachers:

PlanBee is a resource website aimed at providing primary school teachers with all they need to create exciting, relevant and inspiring lesson plans. Becky Waters, creator of PlanBee, says that the aim of the site is to “take the sting out of planning”. Joining the site is free, but there is a charge to download some of the lesson plans and resources.

www.planbee.com

Twinkl is a new online resource centre for foundation and Key Stage 1 teachers. It offers ‘bright resources for bright teachers’ and everything is free to download and use. There is also a ’suggest a resource’ section which allows teachers to suggest things that they would like to see on the site.

www.twinkl.co.uk

What are your favourite teaching resource sites?

Percy Parker is a groovy grandad who has been popular in schools for many years now. He sings songs which help children to learn their times tables and there are some free downloads from Percy’s CD on Teaching Ideas.

Percy is now back with a brand new cross-curricular resource called ‘Percy Parker’s Flying Bathtub’. There are songs and resources covering a wide range of history, geography, science and other curriculum topics. If you’re studying the Tudors in class, for instance, there’s a fifteen-minute scene (including two songs) based on the Tudors that you can read through in your classroom and perhaps perform simply in an assembly. If another year group is studying Food Chains or Vikings or Outer Space, there are scenes for them too. And if you want to put on a full-scale school production, just put everyone’s scenes together and hey presto – a musical!

Andrew Holdsworth, the creator of Percy Parker, has kindly allowed me to have a look at the resource and I’m extremely impressed. It includes:

• A folder full of scripts, musical scores, lyrics, costume ideas, production and choreography advice. There is also background information about the curriculum area that each scene relates to.
• An audio CD containing all 15 tracks from the production (with and without vocals) as well as relevant sound effects which you can use.
• A CD-Rom with teaching ideas, choreography ideas, editable scripts, projectable backdrop images and lots more.

Percy Parker’s Flying Bathtub (Tudors to 20th Century) is available now here. Two other packs have also been produced:

• ‘Ancient History and Invaders’ will be available from May 2010.
• ‘Science and Nature’ will be available from September 2010.

FREE DOWNLOAD – You can also find out more at Teaching Ideas and get yourself an exclusive free download from the resource.

My Money is a £10 million investment by the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) to deliver joined up lessons on personal finance in schools until 2011. As you may be aware, one of the key outcomes of the Every Child Matters agenda is for young people to achieve Economic Wellbeing. A major contributor to this is their ability to have the skills, knowledge and attitudes to manage their personal finances successfully.

The My Money Mathematics Resources were launched recently and comprises six themes built around different practical aspects of money. They are:

Money…

• what is it? – local trading schemes leading to currency exchange
• earning it – the world of work and take home pays
• spending it – buying and running a car
• investing it – savings accounts and investing in shares
• risking it – gambling and fruit machines
• being enterprising with it – setting up an ice-cream business (geometric investigation)

Mathematical demand increases throughout each theme, from National Curriculum Level 1 (Entry Level 1) to National Curriculum Level 8 (GCSE Grade B+) but can be easily extended to challenge the brightest pupils. The activities have been designed to give teachers the freedom to create their own units of work, as recommended by National Strategies, but individual activities can also be used within discrete starter–main–plenary lessons.

Download the resources here.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and Partnerships for Schools (PfS) are running an exciting new initiative to get Energy Display Meters provided and installed into English state-funded schools, absolutely free. The meter provides real-time information about your school’s electricity use in an easy-to-understand format which can be used as a teaching and learning tool.

www.energydisplaymeter.co.uk

The device is linked to your school’s PC networks, enabling you to raise energy awareness amongst pupils and teachers. It is also an excellent customisable teaching tool. Register your interest on the Energy Display Meter site and you will be informed as soon as applications are open.

Year Dot is a documentary which followed the paths of 15 young people over one year, as they pursue their goals across a range of subjects. Their stories give an insight into their respective fields: Business Management, English, Politics, Performing Arts and P.E, to name a few. They also document the journey taken in transforming a school time passion into a full-blown career.

Alongside these academic insights, the documentary provides an intimate portrayal of some difficult and relevant social subjects. The community engagement of these individuals is also inspiring, making the videos a valuable resource for opening up social issues in the classroom, and bringing curriculum subjects like PSHE and citizenship to life.

www.yeardot.co.uk/resources

The Year Dot site allows you to search for video resources and catch up clips linked to different areas of the curriculum.

Tony Crowley has created a number of career education publications which can be used by primary schools and younger secondary school pupils. They are freely downloadable and aim to support the government’s plans to bring certain aspects of careers education into primary schools.

The resources contain games, group activities, quizzes, questionnaires and worksheets. One of these documents is embedded below and the others can be downloaded here.

Timetable Online is a relatively new and free tool which allows schools, colleges and universities to book resources online.

www.timetableonline.com

The site has clear tutorials if you are interested in seeing how it works, and you can request use via their simple form.

Makutano Junction is a Kenyan produced TV soap opera which currently attracts over seven million viewers in Kenya alone. You can watch the show online (including the previous series) at the Makutano Junction site.

www.makutanojunction.org.uk

A range of teaching materials, based upon the show, have been created to help teachers who face the challenge of embedding global learning across the curriculum. Classroom activities include viewing genuine extracts from the soap opera, which help engage young people with global issues; discovering similarities, challenging stereotypes and raising awareness.

The site also has an extremely useful area giving valuable information about Kenya itself.

Over the Christmas break, I created a new website to add to my collection(!). The new site is called Teaching Videos and is a place to find and share educational videos that can be used in the classroom.

www.teachingvideos.co.uk / www.teachingvideos.tv

Each video comes with a selection of teaching ideas, showing how it might be used in the classroom. There are also some videos which teachers can use for professional development, including some ICT training resources.

Anyone can search for videos, find them by subject / topic, or browse through by age group. Registered members can also add ratings / comments and even upload videos to share with others. Registrations are currently closed, but if you are interested in testing the system, please email me.

After only a few weeks online, it is already becoming incredibly popular and I have had lots of positive feedback about it. I hope that the site is useful to you.

Last month, I wrote a post about a book that was being created by Doug Belshaw and other teachers using Twitter. Contributors were invited to share teaching tips, ideas and suggestions in 140 characters using a special tag.

All of these tweets have now been collated and the book is now available to download or buy.

The PDF is available for free download: http://bit.ly/movemeonpdf
The book is available at cost price: http://bit.ly/movemeonbook
A (cheaper) black and white version of the book is also available here.

It is a valuable resource for new and experienced teachers with a huge collection of useful ideas. It’s well worth downloading or buying a paper copy.