Christmas is approaching quickly, so here are ten sites which offer Christmas resources for you to use:

1) Teaching Ideas – My wife drew some wonderful Christmas cartoons last year and I was able to use them to make some popular Christmas resources. I’ve also spent the past few weeks making another new collection of content, including some ‘Christmas Inspiration posters’ which you can download free. Take a look!

2) Primary Resources - An enormous collection of Christmas resources are available to download here. Highly recommended.

3) TPet – The Teachers Pet team have been really busy making lots of Christmas display resources and activities over the past few weeks. They all look fantastic!

4) Twinkl – Lots of printable and editable activities and resources are available for download from Twinkl… and more are added on a regular basis.

5) TES – The TES resource bank is an immense collection of teaching material and there is a special Christmas collection which you can explore.

6) Mrs. Pancake have lots of lovely craft activities which you can download and print. Try the 3D Christmas cards or Dancing Santa!

7) Woodlands Junior School – This is a wonderful resource for children, offering a guide to Christmas, in child-friendly language with lots of images and illustrations. There is also a special page of resources for teachers.

8 ) The North Pole – This site is full of Christmas games and activities. One of my favourite sections is the ‘Christmas around the World’ section which explains how people in different countries celebrate Christmas.

9) North Pole – Northpole.com has lots of Christmas stories, recipes and activities that you can use.

10) RE:Quest - You can download a number of great Christmas resources here and watch videos of Christmas services and events. A great resources for Christmas RE activities.

11) Sing Up – The popular ‘Sing Up’ site has a special Festive pack of resources which you can download too.

What is your favourite Christmas resource site?

Christmas is just over one month away and lots of schools are getting ready for their Christmas-themed lessons and activities! Our popular Christmas theme was published last year and the resources were downloaded many thousands of times. I’ve recently made a new set of resources and added them to the page. Take a look!

I’ve also made a set of ‘Inspirations’ posters linked to Christmas. These can be used as lesson starters… to stimulate discussion… to review what children know… as a starting point for creative writing… or for classroom display. If people like them, I’ll try and make some more Inspirations for the other sections on Teaching Ideas.

I’m sure that I’ll be making more Christmas resources over the coming weeks, so stay tuned to our RSS feed, Facebook and Twitter pages to receive the latest updates!

Teaching News will now be taking it’s Christmas break until January.

I would like to wish all readers of Teaching News and visitors to my Teaching Websites a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Mark

Post Image – Christmas Tree – Boston

The Mouseclub is a free website which offers free games and activities for children as well as ideas for parents and teachers to help support their child and pupils. The site has just been re-designed and re-launched in time for Christmas to provide children aged 3 – 7 and their parents with fun, free activities over the festive season, to keep the kids entertained whilst learning.

There are lots of free downloadables and lesson plans for teachers and the site also offers extra features for those who register, along with educational software which can be purchased in the shop.

Christmas is now only a few weeks away and there are lots of great resources for teachers online:

• Twinkl have lots of Christmas resources which you can download and print (or have them printed for you!).

www.twinkl.co.uk

• Lots of downloadable PDF Christmas resources are also available from Teacher’s Pet.

www.tpet.co.uk

• 2Simple have produced an advent calendar which is full of ideas for using the wonderful Purple Mash at Christmas time.

www.2simpletalk.com/?p=3020

• FilmClub have collected a list of festive films that are a bit different from the usual White Christmas. Schools might want to watch some of these as the starting point for lessons or just for fun during the festive season! You can also get involved in the creation of a digital Christmas card by entering their competition.

www.filmclub.org

This is just a small selection of the fantastic free resources that are available online. Don’t forget to visit our Christmas Teaching Theme too!

Post Image – Christmas Tree – Boston

What are your favourite Christmas resources?

Our new Christmas Teaching Theme has recently been published and it is rapidly becoming the most popular section on Teaching Ideas! This theme is the biggest one yet and it includes a wide range of teaching ideas, resources, display material, videos, photos, jokes, apps, games and links… all related to Christmas. Visit the theme at www.teachingideas.co.uk/themes/christmas.

If you have any Christmas ideas or resources that you are able to share, please email them to me and I will try to put them on the theme page as soon as possible. Thank you.

I will not be publishing a new theme in January as I want to be able to spend some time re-organising the current theme resources. However, I’m looking forward to the next theme in February… stay tuned to the Teaching Ideas Twitter and Facebook pages later this month to find out what it is!

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be able to attend the recording of one of this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. These lectures have been inspiring children and adults alike since 1825. They were initiated by Michael Faraday at a time when organised education for young people was scarce.

As the Royal Institution site explains… “In this year’s Christmas Lectures, Prof Sue Hartley will show you plants as you’ve never seen them before. They are complicated, cunning, beautiful and with plenty of tricks up their sleeve. And what’s more, we humans are dependent on them in ways you’d never imagine. As well as much of our food, our drugs, medicines and materials are all by-products of this epic 300 million year war.”

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the recording of one of the lectures. It was full of practical demonstrations, amazing facts and Sue presented it with a huge amount of enthusiasm for the subject. It was one of the most enjoyable Science lessons I’ve ever had and I can’t wait to watch it all over again on TV!

If you would like to see the lectures yourself, they are on More4 from 21st to 25th December at 7pm. Find out more here.

]]> http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/2009/12/royal-institution-christmas-lectures/feed/ 0 http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/2009/12/more-christmas-ideas/ http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/2009/12/more-christmas-ideas/#comments Sat, 12 Dec 2009 07:16:21 +0000 markwarner http://www.teachingnews.co.uk/?p=3669

Following on from my previous post about Christmas ideas and activities to try in the classroom, I’ve collected together another set of useful resources that you might be able to try in the final weeks before the big day!

All about Christmas

WhyChristmas answers lots of questions that you might want to ask about Christmas. The site is nicely organised, easy to use and it also has some interactive online activities to try.

Teaching Ideas

I have added a selection of new Christmas resources to the Christmas section of Teaching Ideas.

The latest update to Primary Resources also includes a number of new Christmas resources that have been added over the past few days.

10Ticks also have a special Christmas page with lots of free resources to use at this time of year. You might have to register to download some of these, but registration is free.

Interactive Sites

I’ve also discovered a selection of fun Christmas sites via Twitter recently. These include…

• Christmas Reindeer – Play this musical game on your interactive whiteboard. To play the tune, you have to click on the reindeers’ noses!

• Portable North Pole – A wonderful site which lets you create personalised videos from Father Christmas. Great for sending messages to family and friends… although remember your Internet Safety rules about sharing personal information!

I hope that the last few days of teaching before Christmas are enjoyable for you, and that some of these resources are useful!

Post Image – Christmas Tree – Boston

The team from Sparkteaching are aiming to put together an online advent calendar, which schools are invited to take part in.

As their website explains, “each day, from December 1st to 25th, the calendar will display a piece of artwork uploaded by elementary / primary aged children from anywhere in the world on the theme “What Does Christmas Mean To You?”

Any children can take part, the incentive being that they could see their artwork online, viewed by hundreds, as part of the advent calendar.

It’d be great to see you get involved, particularly if the children in your class might provide a different perspective on what Christmas means to them. Obviously we’re looking for the first pieces of artwork by the 1st and then on throughout December (if you get in first, your artwork will be displayed for longer!)

Any artwork will be accepted (if it’s scannable, it’s acceptable!) Please scan and send as an attachment to: competition@sparkyteaching.com together with the artist’s first name and location (and age if you wish) and your school’s website address (we’d be happy to link to this if you’d like us too!)”

Even if you don’t take part, don’t forget to visit the online advent calendar from the 1st onwards to see what Christmas means to those who do…”

Find out more about the competition on Sparkyteaching’s site and view the calendar here.

Lots of schools here in the UK and around the world are preparing for Christmas. We’re putting up the decorations at my school this week, so I thought that it might be useful to share a selection of ideas, activities and resources that can be used as part of Christmas activities over the next few weeks. If you have any idea, why not add it to the comments at the bottom of this page?

Learn about Christmas…

The wonderful Woodlands Junior school site is a fantastic source of information for those who would like to learn more about Christmas traditions in Britain:

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/xmas/

The-North-Pole.com also has information about how Christmas is celebrated around the world.

Lesson ideas and resources…

Visit the Christmas sections on Teaching Ideas and Primary Resources to discover lots of lesson ideas and activities.

You could also try making an Origami Christmas tree. Thanks to Mister G for sharing this on Twitter.

The BBC also has a useful site giving information about Victorian Christmas activities, with videos showing how to try lots of different crafts.

DK.com has a selection of Christmas clip-art which could be used as part of craft activities, or to liven up your interactive whiteboard slides.

Don’t forget to use Teaching Search to find Christmas teaching materials on a selection of fantastic sites.

Christmas Music…

Listen Live has a selection of Christmas radio stations that you can listen to. Feels like Christmas has some free (and legal!) downloadable Christmas music. Don’t forget to try the Dancing Santa at Northpole.com too!

Interactive sites to try…

Visit some of these sites to find Christmas / winter games to use on an interactive whiteboard, or as part of children’s independent activities using computers:

• Make a Flake – make your own snowflakes onscreen. This could be used as a starting point for making your own snowflakes with paper and scissors.
• NorthPole.com – an enormous site with lots of interactive and educational Christmas activities.
  
• Snowman Maker – create a snowman by dragging and dropping the different features.
• Winterbells – Children in my classes have always loved this game. How high can you get the bunny to bounce?

Take a look at the Kent ICT and Northumberland NGfL sites for even more useful places to explore!

Do you have a favourite Christmas activity / resource? I’d love to hear about it in the comments…

Post Image – Christmas Tree – Boston