Quiz Buzzer is a new interactive whiteboard resource from TeacherLED. It’s perfect for running class quiz activities where you have two individuals / teams answering questions quickly. Children have to press their button as quickly as possible and answer before the coloured lights disappear. There are also alternative suggestions for using the resource on the TeacherLED site.

There are lots of other resources available at TeacherLED. Teachers can download an index for the resources to explore what is available and identify what might be useful for their lessons.

My Life is a free interactive resource produced by The Children’s Society which aims to help children aged 7 to 11 develop the skills they need for a healthy, happy childhood.

www.mylife4schools.org.uk

The content is separated into different units, covering friends, family, learning, beliefs and keeping healthy. There are links to the National Curriculum, Every Child Matters and SEAL.

The resource has information for:

• Teachers – with online activities, case studies, activity sheets and teachers’ notes.
• Children – including animations and online storybooks.
• Parents – showing what the activities are about and how to get information and support.

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.

I’ve been a user of Memiary for a long time now. I use the site to record five things that I’ve done / achieved / want to remember each day. I also use the tool in my classroom… as a class, we spend a few minutes at the end of each day recording five things that we have learned or discovered during that day. It’s a great way of reflecting on the children’s achievements and helping them to remember each day’s events. Every now and again, we look back through the things that we have recorded and discuss what we wrote. I also use the service to make a display which shows our ‘memiaries’.

edu.memiary.com

I am now pleased to announce that there is a new version of Memiary, especially for education, which is supported by Teaching Ideas. The site has a number of additional features:

• Teachers can set up an account for themselves, as well as having individual accounts for pupils, allowing students to record their own list of five memories / achievements. Teachers can then see what their children have recorded.
• Teachers can change the question… so you could ask your pupils “What did you learn today?”, “What did you achieve today?”, “What were you proud of today?” or another question of your choice.
• You can jump back to previous ‘memiaries’ using a date picker or the random date tool. This is great for browsing around what you have achieved in the past.
• You can embed a widget on your school website / VLE which shows the ‘memiaries’ that you have recorded. Obviously, this makes your the content of your memiaries public, so ensure that pupils are aware of the e-safety issues.

Existing users of Memiary can import their memories into the new educational version. If you haven’t tried out the site before, now is the perfect time to explore. It’s quick, easy and free to register.

What did you learn today?

Tony Poulter has created a wonderful resource called the Primary Teacher’s Toolbox. According to Tony, it has ‘more useful links than you can shake a stick at’.

www.btinternet.com/~tony.poulter

There are links to:

• useful sites for teachers,
• child-safe websites suitable for foundation, KS1 and KS2 children,
• cyberhunts which encourage children to use the Internet,
• interactive quizzes and more…

Tony has also added useful information and documents for teachers and trainees. The site is well worth exploring.

The Jewel of Muscat is a reconstruction of a 9th century trading ship that sailed the Maritime Silk Road from Arabia to China. The Jewel is currently recreating the spirit of naval adventure by sailing from Oman to Singapore. You can follow the journey of the ship and find out all about it’s creation on their website which has lots of videos, daily logs and photos from the ship, a real-time route map, and interactive games for children.

www.jewelofmuscat.tv

The site also features free lesson plans and fun class activities covering geography, history and technology for students aged 6-16 (appropriate for KS1, KS2 and KS3).

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.

TES Connect currently hosts one of the world’s largest banks of teaching resources and lesson plans. At present, there are over 44,000 resources which can be downloaded for free.

The site is planning to expand further by adding significant amounts of content and launching dedicated resources destinations for teachers in their specialist areas: TES Primary, TES Special Needs and TES Secondary subjects.

www.tes.co.uk

TSL have also acquired i-board (www.i-board.co.uk) and made over 500 interactive whiteboard activities for KS1, Foundation, Primary and Special Needs available to schools and teachers for free.

The site is also planning to:

• Improve the search experience for teachers, organising over 18,000 existing primary resources and creating a further 1,000 Key Stage 2 digital whiteboard resources.
• Procure and host over 2,000 resources aimed at Special Needs.
• Add over 3,000 secondary teaching resources from englishteaching.co.uk to the existing resources on TES Connect.
• Add new Key Stages 3, 4 and A level, podcasts and videos from MrBartonMaths.com to the site and develop new mathematics resources.
• Collaborate with David Smith, creator of Brain Cells (brain-cells.co.uk) and The Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching (CIMT) to share content on TES Connect.

Steph Westwood has been busy creating sets of weblists containing useful links for teachers. These are all created using weblist.me and Steph has organised them into a range of different categories.

http://weblist.me/user/2sparkley

The categories include:

• Word Clouds
• Typing Games
• Interactive Whiteboard sites
• Art sites
• Avatar creators

Steph is planning to create more weblists so keep an eye on the site for future updates. You can also follow Steph’s blog and Twitter account.

Here are links to a selection of online resources which can help with the teaching and learning of spellings:

• SpellingCity.com – Teachers can register on this site and add spelling words for their pupils to learn. Children can then try a range of activities and take part in tests.

• SATs Spelling Tests – @arsenalchris has added all of the spelling words used in KS2 SATs tests to SpellingCity and made them available for others to use. Mrs Aviss has also created a set of 10 spelling revision lists which will give more practice.
• BBC Skillswise – The BBC have lots of spelling resources on their Skillswise site, covering a wide range of spelling patterns.
• Youtube Spelling Bee – An interactive spelling bee is available on Youtube. Click on the correct answers to go to the next video. There is a prize at the end!

• Lisa Dubernard has recommended some spelling resources on Promethean Planet.
• Don’t forget the ‘Ways to Support Spelling in the classroom’ presentation on Ideas to Inspire.
• St Ambrose Barlow Catholic Primary School have lots of Year 6 spelling resources on their school website.
• Teaching Ideas – Lots of spelling resources are available to use in the classroom. Also try searching for spellings with TeachrSearch.
• Teaching Videos – There are a number of teaching videos which can be used to help children to learn spellings.

What are your favourite spelling resources?