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.

Here are details of two sites which can be used to support work on road safety:

Safety Matters is designed for 7-11 year olds (and their teachers / parents) and offers free and interactive resources. Safety Matters provides teachers with lesson plans, assembly plans, student worksheets and interactive whiteboard tools which deliver road safety messages whilst supporting the Key Stage 2 PSHE, literacy and numeracy curriculum.

www.safetymatters.renault.co.uk

The pupil section of the website contains fun and interactive games, exercises, downloadable screen savers and a glossary, all designed to reinforce learning objectives. The parents section provides useful safety information on subjects such as cycling and the Green Cross Code.

Think! Education is made by the Department for Transport, offering road safety information and resources for primary-aged pupils, teachers and parents.

www.dft.gov.uk/think/education

The resources are designed to be used flexibly, with mix and match lesson ideas. Resources have been provided in a variety of formats to suit different learning styles. There are posters, online big books, stories, songs, interactive whiteboard activities, activity sheets, homework sheets, audio clips and videos. You can download these from the site, but teachers can also order free printed copies of some of the resources.

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.

Simon Haughton has put together a really useful site for children to use at home or at school as part of preparations for their SATs. There are links to some wonderful educational sites which primary children (and teachers) will enjoy exploring.

www.parkfieldict.co.uk/sats/

Although there will not be Science SATs this year, those who want some extra Science practice should take a look at the Science Boot Camp.

Percy Parker is a groovy grandad who has been popular in schools for many years now. He sings songs which help children to learn their times tables and there are some free downloads from Percy’s CD on Teaching Ideas.

Percy is now back with a brand new cross-curricular resource called ‘Percy Parker’s Flying Bathtub’. There are songs and resources covering a wide range of history, geography, science and other curriculum topics. If you’re studying the Tudors in class, for instance, there’s a fifteen-minute scene (including two songs) based on the Tudors that you can read through in your classroom and perhaps perform simply in an assembly. If another year group is studying Food Chains or Vikings or Outer Space, there are scenes for them too. And if you want to put on a full-scale school production, just put everyone’s scenes together and hey presto – a musical!

Andrew Holdsworth, the creator of Percy Parker, has kindly allowed me to have a look at the resource and I’m extremely impressed. It includes:

• A folder full of scripts, musical scores, lyrics, costume ideas, production and choreography advice. There is also background information about the curriculum area that each scene relates to.
• An audio CD containing all 15 tracks from the production (with and without vocals) as well as relevant sound effects which you can use.
• A CD-Rom with teaching ideas, choreography ideas, editable scripts, projectable backdrop images and lots more.

Percy Parker’s Flying Bathtub (Tudors to 20th Century) is available now here. Two other packs have also been produced:

• ‘Ancient History and Invaders’ will be available from May 2010.
• ‘Science and Nature’ will be available from September 2010.

FREE DOWNLOAD – You can also find out more at Teaching Ideas and get yourself an exclusive free download from the resource.

My Money is a £10 million investment by the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) to deliver joined up lessons on personal finance in schools until 2011. As you may be aware, one of the key outcomes of the Every Child Matters agenda is for young people to achieve Economic Wellbeing. A major contributor to this is their ability to have the skills, knowledge and attitudes to manage their personal finances successfully.

The My Money Mathematics Resources were launched recently and comprises six themes built around different practical aspects of money. They are:

Money…

• what is it? – local trading schemes leading to currency exchange
• earning it – the world of work and take home pays
• spending it – buying and running a car
• investing it – savings accounts and investing in shares
• risking it – gambling and fruit machines
• being enterprising with it – setting up an ice-cream business (geometric investigation)

Mathematical demand increases throughout each theme, from National Curriculum Level 1 (Entry Level 1) to National Curriculum Level 8 (GCSE Grade B+) but can be easily extended to challenge the brightest pupils. The activities have been designed to give teachers the freedom to create their own units of work, as recommended by National Strategies, but individual activities can also be used within discrete starter–main–plenary lessons.

Download the resources here.

mathsticks was launched recently as a means of sharing mathematical resources with other teachers around the UK, and beyond. The site was created by John Duffty, a lecturer at Chester University, and offers to support teachers, students, parents, carers and children develop their mathematical teaching and learning. The fundamental aim is to make learning meaningful (and to make maths stick!).

www.mathsticks.com

Once you have registered, you can access a huge collection of free mathematical games, visual aids and interactive materials together with strategies and lesson ideas.

A new website has been launched to help schools teach pupils about sustainable living and the key role that scientists and engineers will play in tackling the challenges of climate change.

The online resource, 3MWorldlyWise is designed to boost young interest in studying the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths from GCSE to A-level and on to university.

www.3mworldlywise.co.uk

This free website  contains lots of helpful tips for living a ‘greener’ life, along with resources for teachers, and is particularly aimed at students aged from 11-16 years old (although it could also be used by upper KS2 children, I’m sure).

Mangahigh.com is a games-based learning site focussing on maths for secondary school students, although some of the games could be useful for upper KS2 children too.

The site features commercial quality gameplay, rewarding students with achievements that celebrate their progress. I had lots of fun playing ‘Ice Ice Baby’ which challenged my estimation and approximation skills.

You can play many of the games online for free, but the site also offers a subscription service which allows you to monitor students’ progress and create ‘to do’ lists of activities for them to complete.

Quantum Theatre provide educational shows for schools in the UK. The company was originally set up in 1988 with the aim of using educational drama to support schools with their teaching of numeracy and science. Over twenty years on, nearly three thousand schools each year see Quantum performances, using them to introduce or reinforce these topics.

Some of the shows currently available include:

• The Big Drip - materials and their properties
• Captain Cholesterol & the Grannies from Mars - health & nutrition
• Bin Raider - the environment, re-cycling and energy-saving
• Lights & Sounds of Tinseltown - light and sound
• The Missing Link - animal & human biology
• The Mysterious Disappearance of Mr. Winchlever - forces & mechanics
• On the Trail of the Countback Kid – a new show which covers place value, number operations, the four functions, a variety of mental methods including approximation, partition and number bonds, times tables and written methods of addition and subtraction – a Maths lesson with a difference!

Find out more about the Quantum Theatre productions at www.quantumtheatre.co.uk.