For the fifth year running, development charity Sightsavers, is inviting primary school children across the UK to take part in the 2010 Junior Painter of the Year competition and paint their vision of the future.

The competition, run by Sightsavers in partnership with the Royal Academy Schools, aims to promote the use of paint in school classrooms, whilst encouraging children to reflect on sight and blindness amongst their peers. Last year over 15,000 entries were submitted by children aged 4-11 and this year’s theme Visions of the Future is set to generate even more.

The winning young painters will have their work exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, alongside works by the famous artist and illustrator Quentin Blake CBE, and the renowned artist and Keeper of the Royal Academy of Arts, Professor Maurice Cockrill RA.

www.sightsavers.org/juniorpainter

Three national winners, one from each category (4-7 years, 8-9 years and 10-11 years), will be selected from a list of regional winners.  They will then enjoy a fun-packed day out in London with their teachers in the autumn and attend the awards ceremony at the Royal Academy of Arts where their paintings will be the central focus of the exciting exhibition. Plus one lucky teacher will win a one-of-a-kind painting by Professor Cockrill in a new award category for 2010 called the Maurice Cockrill award. This will be presented to the teacher who has inspired their pupils’ creativity the most when developing the theme.

Schools interested in participating in the awards this year can find more at: www.sightsavers.org/juniorpainter or by contacting the Junior Painter of the Year competition Helpline on 01444 446 768 for a free awards pack.  Entries must be submitted by 14 September 2010.

Cyberkidz is a Dutch ‘edutainment’ site with lots of educational games, covering Maths, Literacy, Geography, Art, Music and more. The games are sorted by subject and age range, suitable for children aged 4-11.

www.cyberkidz.net

The site has recently been translated into English, so even more children are now able to take advantage of these resources.

Young Brits at Art is our national arts awards competition for 11-19 year olds from all backgrounds and walks of life who live in England, Scotland and Wales. It has been launched by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

This academic year, they are asking young people to show us what the world would look like if we lived without prejudice. Watch this Youtube video to find out more.

Entries must be submitted by March 2010, so if you want to find out more about the competition, or you would like to enter, visit the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The Art Classroom is a wonderful blog about art and design in secondary schools. It is run by David Dunlop and shows the day to day workings of an art classroom.

There are lots of examples of student work, as well as unit plans and ideas for other schools to try. Take a look and leave some comments about the work that is shared.

Here are links to some of the most popular ideas on Teaching Ideas over the past few months:

1. The Hundred Square (Maths) – Use the 100 square to find patterns by colouring in certain squares.
2. Story Plans (Literacy) – Two free worksheets which children can use when planning their stories.
3. Story Settings (Literacy) – A fantastic resource which encourages children to describe settings without telling the reader directly.
4. Millionaire Place Value Game (Maths) – A competition between the teacher and pupils which develops understanding of place value.
5. Feelings Flowers (Art) – A wonderful way of encouraging children to think about their feelings.
6. The Skeleton (Science) – A handy worksheet on which children have to identify different parts of the skeleton.
7. Place Value Clap (Maths) – A brilliant method of getting children to think about place value.
8. Decimal Number Lines (Maths) – Three number lines which children can refer to during their work on decimals.
9. Place Value Hats (Maths) – Use this excellent idea to develop children’s understanding of place value.
10. Fill in the Punctuation (Literacy) – Children need to put the correct punctuation into a piece of text.

What is your favourite teaching idea? Send your ideas and I will add them to the site as soon as I can. Thank you

One Million Giraffes is an online project in which one person is hoping to collect 1 million giraffes by 2011. People are sending pictures of their giraffes (which can’t be created on a computer) and at the time of writing, the collection has reached over 250,000!

Could your class get involved?

• Ask each child to draw one giraffe… or maybe more! This could be as part of an Art activity or set as homework.
• Think of creative ways of making giraffes… they don’t have to be hand-drawn but they cannot be made using a computer.
• Explore the giraffe images on the site… how were they made? Could your pupils create their own giraffes using similar techniques?

Get your pupils involved and have one of their giraffes as part of the million!

A new project called ‘Playground Partnerships’ has been set up, aiming to encourage learning through play, and give children the chance to take a lead in the design of new playgrounds for their school. The design process is meant to encourage the development of key skills in children, such as teamwork, effective communication and leadership.

After schools have submitted their designs, Kids First will then grant £10,000 to what they judge to be the best portfolio, allowing that design to be turned into reality. Ten runners up will be granted £1,000 each to make improvements to their playgrounds.

Visit Playground Partnerships to find out more, register for the competition and download free teaching resources.

Ideas to Inspire now has over 500 ideas! The site originally started as somewhere to host my ‘Ideas to Inspire Writing‘ presentation. Since then, Tom Barrett, Doug Belshaw, Mark Clarkson, Joe Rowing, Tony Cassidy and Noel Jenkins have kindly allowed me to add their presentations to the site, which all receive hundreds of visitors each day.

The site is expanding at an incredible rate. I try to update the RSS feed regularly, and this week over 50 new ideas have been added, with three brand new presentations! If you haven’t seen the site yet, take a look… if you haven’t contributed to one of the presentations, please get in touch the creator – their details are usually on the first or last page of each presentation.

UPDATE – There are now more than 1000 ideas to inspire on the site!