So far this year, I’ve published 175 posts here on Teaching News. As the end of 2011 is approaching, I’ve added links to the most popular posts of the year. Did you miss any of them?

1) Royal Wedding Ideas and Resources
2) 10 Inspiring Youtube videos for Teachers
3) 10 Evernote Uses for Teachers
4) New iPod, iPhone and iPad Apps for Schools
5) Topmarks Education
6) Top Five Discoveries (17/6/11)
7) New Christmas Resources and Inspiration Posters
8 ) 11 Resource Sites for your Christmas Activities
9) 15 Remembrance Resources for Teachers
10) Favourite Resource Sites for the New School Year

This will probably be the last post of 2011, but I’m looking forward to sharing new ideas and resources with you in 2012!

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Mark

Documentary Tube is a free site which allows you to watch over 1000 documentaries, covering a variety of subjects and topics. The videos are easy to find and you can also subscribe to receive the latest updates via RSS, email, Facebook or Twitter!

The site is popular with teachers and the developers are currently preparing a new ‘Schools Zone’ which will include documentaries on core subject matters, and those outlined in the curriculum.

Don’t forget to visit our Teaching Videos site to find shorter videos and clips, all of which are organised by curriculum subject and topic too.

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?

Road Safety Week takes places in the UK from 21st to 27th November. Here are a number of resources that can be used to support activities during the week:

1) Road Safety Week site – The official site contains lots of relevant information and resources that schools can use. Look in the Educators and Resources sections to get started.

2) Road Safety with Buzzy Bee – Sing along with these road safety songs. There is also a video version of one of the songs:

Click here to view the embedded video.

3) 3M Streetwise – This online resource has sections for pupils (aged 7-11), teachers and parents.

4) Tales of the Road – This site has a number of games which children can play online to teach them different road safety messages.

5) Road Safety Adverts – There are a number of road safety adverts available online. Here is one of the more recent ads from the Department of Transport:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s another advert which is a little older… and not quite so scary!

Click here to view the embedded video.

This Tufty road safety advert was made in 1973:

Click here to view the embedded video.

6) Life. Live It – The British Red Cross have a great website for 5-11 year olds which teaches children how to avoid accidents and what to do if they do occur.

7) Renault Safety Matters – Renault have lots of games and activities which teach road safety to 7-11 year olds.

8 ) AAttitude – The AA have a site for older students who are beginning to learn how to drive.

Are you going to teach any road safety lessons this week?

The Champion Hare is a colourful rhyming picture book about a young hare who enters a sports contest and finds himself racing a cheetah and throwing shot put with a gorilla. The story aims to show children that competing can be fun, even when you don’t win, and that perseverance sometimes pays off!

The author recently posted on our Facebook page about the free resources that are available to accompany the book. All of these can be downloaded from the Champion Hare site. You can also find out about the latest resources on the Champion Hare blog.

Don’t forget that you can also find free teaching ideas and resources which are all linked to popular children’s books on our Teaching Library site. Take a look!

If you’re planning some spooky lessons as part of Halloween this week, try some of these great resources:

1) Learn about Halloween and how it is celebrated on the fantastic Project Britain site.

2) There are lots of great craft ideas on LessonSense.com with clear instructions and photos to follow along with.

3) Primary Resources have a section of Halloween resources. Find them all here.

4) The TES have also created a handy list of the Halloween resources on their popular site.

5) Teaching Videos has a number of Halloween-themed videos, including this Skeleton Dance video which your class could join in with!

Click here to view the embedded video.

6) Mrs Pancake has a set of instructions which children can follow to make their own Halloween bats!

7) Twinkl also have lots of Halloween resources, including banners, vocabulary cards, recipe sheets and colouring pictures.

8 ) This interactive site lets you carve your own pumpkins online!

9) Apples4theTeacher also have a large collection of interactive Halloween activities, including online colouring pages and jigsaws.

10) PrimaryGames has a HUGE collection of online Halloween games!

11) You can also download a number of Halloween resources from Primary Treasure Chest.

12) If you would like to try some Halloween origami, Activity Village have lots of different instructions, including this video which shows you how to make a Halloween Cat!

Click here to view the embedded video.

13) There are lots of Halloween craft and activity ideas on TheIdeaBox.com.

14) If you’re able to make some Halloween food and snacks, you could use some of these wonderful recipes.

15) Could your class write their own Halloween poems? Use some of the examples here for inspiration.

What are your favourite Halloween resources?

The amazing Simon Haughton has completed his Primary School History Encyclopedia. The site is perfect for primary children, giving them a place to research different historical periods. Teachers can be confident that the information there is appropriate for young pupils to learn about history independently. Each period in history has pages about a number of related topics with easy-to-read text and photos / illustrations too. The site has taken over a year to create and you can read about its development here.

Simon has a number of other great resources for schools, including:

• The Infant Encyclopedia - http://www.parkfieldict.co.uk/infant/
• Primary School Geography Encyclopedia - http://geography.parkfieldict.co.uk
• ICT Club Activities and Games - http://www.parkfieldict.co.uk/ictclub/
• Junior ICT Companion - http://www.parkfieldict.co.uk/ictcompanion/

Purple Mash is one of my favourite tools for pupils. It provides a huge collection of online resources that children can use to develop their ICT skills and extend their learning in different areas of the curriculum.

The site has recently had a makeover which makes it much easier to use. There are now clear themed areas which give you access to a selection of different online activities for particular topics. You can also choose activities by age range.

The team at 2Simple always work really hard and add new activities to the site on a regular basis. There are a number of free resources on the site, but I think that the subscription price is great value for money when you consider the huge range of content available… which children can access at school and at home! Take a look…

The Book Club offer a great service for schools, helping them to find and buy books quickly and easily. Schools are able to send them a list of the books that they need and The Book Club will organise a quote (with a 10% discount on all books), source the books from the publishers and deliver them free to schools. Their site also has lots of useful lists of suggested books, which are all organised by age group and subject area / topic.

Take a look at their schools page for more information or browse around their site to find some relevant books for your current topics. You can also follow their book suggestions on Facebook and Twitter. The Book Club have also kindly offered to support my new Teaching Library site, enabling me to continue adding new books on a regular basis.

I’ve been browsing through Twitter posts and RSS subscriptions that I follow and have found some new discoveries to share. Which is your favourite?

1) Beatlab (shared by Tony Parkin) – This tool is similar to the inudge site that I shared recently.  It lets you create simple loops of music using a wide variety of instruments. You can also change the speed and length of your loops.

2) Learn with Portal (shared by Steve Bunce) – When I’m not teaching or working on my websites, I enjoy spending time playing XBox. I recently played through the game Portal 2 and I had great fun solving the various puzzles that the game provides. I was really excited about this project which involves schools using the game to design levels and create their own challenges. The Learn with Portal site doesn’t show much at the moment, but this Youtube video shows some of the potential of the project:

Click here to view the embedded video.

3) Inside Story Flashcards (discovered on I Learn Technology) – This site has a selection of flashcards that would look great on an interactive whiteboard, or printed and put on display in the classroom. The cards are sorted into basic, easy, medium and hard groups of words and they could be used for ‘Word of the Day’ type activities to expand children’s vocabulary.

4) Edupic (discovered on the Whiteboard Blog) – Edupic has a large gallery of pictures and clipart that can be freely used for educational purposes. Teachers could use them in their presentations and children could also use them as part of their own projects in the classroom.

5) Writing Prompts (discovered on I Learn Technology) – This great site shares some wonderful images which can be used as starting points for writing in the classroom. There are a wide range of pictures, covering lots of different weird and wonderful topics!

Don’t forget that I have also created a number of ‘Writing Inspirations‘ posters which you can download for free on Teaching Ideas.