The BBC has launched a new website called Exploring the Solar System which is very useful for primary and secondary schools as part of their work in Science.

www.bbc.co.uk/solarsystem

Exploring the Solar System covers all subjects – the moon, Earth, the Sun, astronauts – and contains images, facts, clips, videos and animations. It is a fascinating resource for anyone wanting to find out more about our Solar System. It also includes footage from the BBC’s space series Wonders of the Solar System, which is currently showing on TV and available to watch again with iPlayer.

Here are links to some of the most popular Teaching News articles over the past few months, in case you have missed any of them:

• Communication 4 All – Have you visited this wonderful resource site?
• Safer Internet Day – Lots of links and advice for teaching your pupils about staying safe online.
• Anithings Offer – A special offer (which has now ended) offering visitors to Teaching News a discount and free gift for purchases of this fantastic animation software.
• Creative Curriculum – Information and links about creative curriculum ideas.
• Ryan’s Thinkers Keys – Download a set of activities that children can take part in at the start of the day, or as part of other lessons.
• New Primary Curriculum Online – Find out all about the new primary curriculum and how to find it online.
• Planbee and Twinkl – Have you seen these new teaching resource sites?
• Spelling Resources – A selection of links and resources to support the teaching of spelling in your classroom.
• Primary Teacher Resource Centre – Take part in this active forum for primary school teachers.
• KS2 Spelling Lists – Download some useful lists of spelling words.

Quiz Buzzer is a new interactive whiteboard resource from TeacherLED. It’s perfect for running class quiz activities where you have two individuals / teams answering questions quickly. Children have to press their button as quickly as possible and answer before the coloured lights disappear. There are also alternative suggestions for using the resource on the TeacherLED site.

There are lots of other resources available at TeacherLED. Teachers can download an index for the resources to explore what is available and identify what might be useful for their lessons.

My Life is a free interactive resource produced by The Children’s Society which aims to help children aged 7 to 11 develop the skills they need for a healthy, happy childhood.

www.mylife4schools.org.uk

The content is separated into different units, covering friends, family, learning, beliefs and keeping healthy. There are links to the National Curriculum, Every Child Matters and SEAL.

The resource has information for:

• Teachers – with online activities, case studies, activity sheets and teachers’ notes.
• Children – including animations and online storybooks.
• Parents – showing what the activities are about and how to get information and support.

ICT Games is a wonderful site with lots of interactive games and activities for primary children. The site is always growing and James Barrett, the creator, has produced some great resources that children can use at home or at school. Here are some links to a selection of them:

• Saucer Sorter – A counting stick for your interactive whiteboard… using the numbers to practise counting forward and backwards in steps… rearrange numbers and ask pupils to put them in the correct order… hide numbers with the star bar and get the children to say what is missing…

• Mummy Numberline – An interactive numberline for simple addition and subtraction.
• Counting Caterpillar – A wonderful game for KS1/2 pupils which requires them to order numbers.
• Count On Catapult – An exciting game which lets children practise counting on to the next 10.

• Change Exchanger – With three levels of difficulty, this game asks children to scan items on the checkout and calculate the amount of change that is needed.
• Editable Interactive Whiteboard Dictionary – An impressive dictionary which you can show on your interactive whiteboard, to support children with their writing.
• Day and Night – Learn how we get day and night by using this interactive guide.

James has also produced lots of ‘Bingo’ style activities covering a range of topics:

• Sound Bingo
• Letters and Sounds Blending
• High Frequency Word Bingo
• Science Bingo

This is just a small selection of the resources available at ICT Games. Teachers can use the planning guide which links the activities to the Primary Framework.

All of the games are fantastic quality, so schools are very lucky that they are available online for free. You can follow James on Twitter to see when he adds new resources to the site.

I’ve been a user of Memiary for a long time now. I use the site to record five things that I’ve done / achieved / want to remember each day. I also use the tool in my classroom… as a class, we spend a few minutes at the end of each day recording five things that we have learned or discovered during that day. It’s a great way of reflecting on the children’s achievements and helping them to remember each day’s events. Every now and again, we look back through the things that we have recorded and discuss what we wrote. I also use the service to make a display which shows our ‘memiaries’.

edu.memiary.com

I am now pleased to announce that there is a new version of Memiary, especially for education, which is supported by Teaching Ideas. The site has a number of additional features:

• Teachers can set up an account for themselves, as well as having individual accounts for pupils, allowing students to record their own list of five memories / achievements. Teachers can then see what their children have recorded.
• Teachers can change the question… so you could ask your pupils “What did you learn today?”, “What did you achieve today?”, “What were you proud of today?” or another question of your choice.
• You can jump back to previous ‘memiaries’ using a date picker or the random date tool. This is great for browsing around what you have achieved in the past.
• You can embed a widget on your school website / VLE which shows the ‘memiaries’ that you have recorded. Obviously, this makes your the content of your memiaries public, so ensure that pupils are aware of the e-safety issues.

Existing users of Memiary can import their memories into the new educational version. If you haven’t tried out the site before, now is the perfect time to explore. It’s quick, easy and free to register.

What did you learn today?

The BBC’s School Report News Day takes place on Thursday 11th March. Is your school taking part?

For those who are new to the project, it aims to turn classrooms into newsrooms, giving children a chance to make the news. Pupils are given opportunities to make news reports about things that are important to them, through the radio, TV and online. You can find out more in this video which explains more.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/school_report/

The BBC site has some useful links and resources for those planning to take part:

• Advice about getting ready for the day,
• Posters to decorate your newsroom,
• Reward certificates for those taking part.
• Suggestions for stories that the pupils could report on.
• A suggested timetable of activities.
• Lots of other resources for teachers.

The School Report site is an extremely useful resource for those taking part in the day, but lots of the content could also be used at other times of the year too.

Tony Poulter has created a wonderful resource called the Primary Teacher’s Toolbox. According to Tony, it has ‘more useful links than you can shake a stick at’.

www.btinternet.com/~tony.poulter

There are links to:

• useful sites for teachers,
• child-safe websites suitable for foundation, KS1 and KS2 children,
• cyberhunts which encourage children to use the Internet,
• interactive quizzes and more…

Tony has also added useful information and documents for teachers and trainees. The site is well worth exploring.

The Jewel of Muscat is a reconstruction of a 9th century trading ship that sailed the Maritime Silk Road from Arabia to China. The Jewel is currently recreating the spirit of naval adventure by sailing from Oman to Singapore. You can follow the journey of the ship and find out all about it’s creation on their website which has lots of videos, daily logs and photos from the ship, a real-time route map, and interactive games for children.

www.jewelofmuscat.tv

The site also features free lesson plans and fun class activities covering geography, history and technology for students aged 6-16 (appropriate for KS1, KS2 and KS3).

Practical Action are a development charity who are offering lots of free resources for schools, linked to their work in helping some of the world’s poorest people to transform their lives for the better.

www.practicalaction.org.uk/education

The Education area of their site has a wide range of content for teachers and pupils, including:

• Videos showing how designers make their sustainable products (useful for DT).
• A sustainability handbook for teachers of Design and Technology.
• Free posters, homework activities, wordsearches, classroom activities, videos and songs linked to renewable energy.
• A selection of experiments, demonstrations and activities which can be used to support work linked to climate change.
• Cross-curricular videos and lesson activities.