To promote the campaign, Smart has created a stop motion animation called The Magical Classroom, which shows dinosaurs coming to life, the creation of Earth and a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. You can view the video below:

At the end of the video, viewers are asked to nominate a teacher who has inspired them to pursue a career, learn a language, become a trapeze artist – anything! All entries are then entered into a prize draw to win a Smart Interactive Whiteboard for a school of the winner’s choice. You can find out more about this campaign, and get involved by nominating a teacher at http://uk.smartloveoflearning.com/

The map, created using Google Maps, identifies opportunities for learning outside of the classroom, all of which have been contributed by other teachers. You can also add to the map yourself, sharing places that you have explored with your classes.

Here’s a video which explains a little more about the map:

Find out more on Peter’s blog or click here to view the map so far. This looks like a wonderful resource which is building all the time. Take a look at the map and don’t forget to add new places to it. It only takes a few seconds but the locations you add might give other classes a valuable new learning experience that they might not otherwise have known about.

http://heritage-key.com

I’ve just spend some time wandering around the environments within Heritage Key and I’m impressed so far. It’s great to be able to walk (virtually) around these different locations, whilst learning the history behind them. This is something that could definitely be of great value in the classroom.

I’ve also run some popular ICT clubs after school in which the children made their own animations, comic strips, compositions, computer games and more. You can read more about these clubs on my other blog, MrWarner.com.

Sharon Cooper runs an ICT club at her school, where the children have been posting examples of their work on their blog and Flickr site.

Are you planning or organising any after school clubs this year? Do you know of any other organised clubs or resources which can help with clubs? I’d love to find out more, so please leave a comment below…

Image – Three girls using the computer…

Here is a video tour of the site which allows teachers to find out more…

The site is still growing and the developers are keen to receive feedback, so take a look and let them know your thoughts!

learndirect research has revealed that almost one in three parents admit to wanting to brush up on their basic English and maths to support their children’s learning and development. Backed by celebrity mum and Waterloo Road actress, Angela Griffin, the new storybooks “The Journey to Darkest Somewhere” and “The House of Scary Words” let kids become the lead characters and change details within the stories.

Here’s a video which gives more information about the project:

The books also encourage readers to use basic English language while they play, so kids and parents can learn together. The new storybooks are available at www.learndirect.co.uk/readtogether. Kids also have the chance to win a professionally printed version of their book. Entrants simply need to register their personal storybook on the website before 31 December 2009.

The site has… as the name implies… lots of wonderful teacher training videos. The videos cover using a range of tools in the classroom, including Fronter, Audacity, WordPress, downloading from Youtube, podcasting and lots more! It is a fantastic resource for teachers, and for anyone interested in improving their ICT skills.

Our ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’ is a play-based curriculum including some early literacy and numeracy goals. The report suggests continuing this informal but structured learning for a year or so, bringing education in England in line with many European countries, where school starts at six or even seven, and standards are often higher.

What do you think? Should our children start formal learning later? How will it have an impact on the children and their learning?

Image – Extra Credit