Would you like to have a library of relaxation resources in your school that are easily accessible to all staff at any time?

Relax Kids has just released CLOUD which is an online relaxation resource for school. CLOUD resources are suitable for children of all abilities including those who have ADHD, SEN, hyperactivity, anger management, stress management and anxiety. You can incorporate CLOUD resources into SEAL, PSHE or as a designated element of one of your other classes.

CLOUD resources vary from 1 minute to 10 minute exercises. The resources include breathing and stretching exercises, visualisation scripts, peer relationship tasks and MP3 downloads. These activities help pupils develop their concentration, listening skills, self-awareness, emotional resilience and creativity.

Visitors to Teaching Ideas and Teaching News can now access £15 worth of free credits by following these instructions:

1. Sign up here: http://www.relaxkids.com/cloud/register.aspx
2. Wait for confirmation of your email address, then click here: http://www.relaxkids.com/cloud/voucher.aspx
3. Enter the voucher code: teachingideas

The free credits will be applied to your account.

Show My Homework is a simple online homework calendar. Teachers can post homework questions, display homework in a simple calendar with deadlines, and assess it online. The site was originally set up for Henry Compton School and its community, but has now become popular among teachers across the world. Find out more in the video below:

Visitors to Teaching Ideas and readers of Teaching News can now get a free 30 day trial and a 50% discount. Read about the other features of Show My Homework and take advantage of this special offer by signing up at http://homeworkdiaryonline.com/teachingideas.html

The Youtube video above gives information about a new offer from British Pathé. Their archive of 90,000 films and 12 million photographs covers an enormous range of subjects including modern British and world history, news, fashion, sport, entertainment, travel, warfare and 20th Century social history.

This archive is available to all schools in the UK through a special education subscription. Schools who subscribe have access to the following additional features:

• Unlimited downloads of British Pathé material for use within the classroom,
• Curriculum-specific collections created by teachers,
• Permission to publish films on Secure Learning Platforms.

Many state schools in the UK already have access to free British Pathé downloads under agreements with their Regional Broadband Consortium or Local Authority, so it’s worth checking to see if your school already has free access.

You can also follow British Pathe on Twitter at @patheschools.

PleaseCallMum is a new child safety initiative which has recently launched a promotion to help teachers taking young children out to crowded locations on school trips. PleaseCallMum supplies temporary tattoo transfers that can be personalised with a designated mobile number and applied easily and discreetly to a child’s forearm.

PleaseCallMum is offering over 1,000 free tattoo transfers to schools organising trips.  They are easy to order and personalise with a designated school mobile phone number and the transfers will be despatched on the day of order.

PleaseCallMum can also be used as a fund raising tool for PTAs. Participating PTAs are given promotional codes and receive a donation from every order processed quoting its personal promotional code. Visit www.pleasecallmum.com to find out more or watch this Youtube video which gives more information about the product:

ROKTalk, a text-to-speech service for websites designed to ‘make websites talk’ through converting written text on websites into real-time, audible speech, has announced it is to gift the service to up to 5,000 primary and secondary schools across the UK this year.

www.roktalk.com

Under the terms of the plan, the first 5,000 schools to apply for the free service before 31st July will have it installed and operational on their websites in time for the next school year in September.

Schools may apply for the free ROKTalk service to be added to their websites by completing the online application form at www.roktalk.com

I came across Anithings at a visit to BETT a few weeks ago. It is a fantastic piece of software which allows children to create their own animations on screen. They can design their own characters and backgrounds or use the ones provided. Recording the animation simply involves pressing the record button and then animating the characters by moving them around.

Here are some demonstrations of how to use the software. The first shows how to make a simple animation:

This video shows some of the more advanced features, such as drawing tools, storyboards and speech bubbles.

Any animations created using the software can be posted online and then embedded into school websites or VLEs.

UPDATE – This offer is now closed.

The team at Anithings have kindly offered visitors to Teaching Ideas and Teaching News a 10% discount on any orders of the software during February. To receive this discount, simple quote ‘Teaching Ideas‘ or ‘Teaching News‘ when you place the order. Schools and teachers using either of these codes will also receive a pack of 90 Anithings stickers featuring characters from the program… great for a display or as a reward for children who create amazing animations with the software!

UPDATE – This offer has now ended.

Don’t forget that our offer of an 8-week trial of Superclubs Plus is ending soon. This fantastic social networking site is a wonderful resource for children providing them with a safe place to communicate with others online.

Read more on our previous post, or simply register with the site at www.superclubsplus.com. This offer has now ended.

UPDATE – This offer has now ended.

Superclubs Plus, created by Intuitive Media is a social networking site for children, giving them access to email, forums, web site creation tools, competitions, surveys, ICT challenges, author interviews and much MUCH more… all within a safe moderated environment.

The children at my school have been using Superclubs Plus for many years and it is always incredibly popular. We use it reguarly to develop the children’s ICT skills and to support our work on Internet safety. If you haven’t tried it out with your primary pupils (aged from 6 to 11), then I highly recommend it.

If your children are too old for Superclubs Plus, why not try out Gold Star Cafe (suitable for ages 11 to 14). It’s just like Superclubs Plus, but has lots more ‘cool stuff’ for older pupils to enjoy.

Pencil Sharp Publishing has got in touch with me, to let me know about some of their new books. You can read more information about some of their range in the PDF here.

Teachers can obtain a free copy of one of the ‘Read Reads’ (for the cost of postage and packing) from Pencil Sharp by quoting the reference PSRR001.