Spellingcity.com is a free spelling tool that can help make the teaching of spelling more exciting. With online spelling games, spelling reviews, and spelling quizzes, pupils can memorise their weekly spelling words while having fun.
In the practice test, students click to hear the word and a sentence containing the word. They type in the word and check for correctness. Pupils login with the class information to access that weeks spelling list. They also have the option of creating their own lists.
You could use your interactive whiteboard to play games with a whole-class weekly spelling list. You could also use the website in various other subject areas to teach keywords e.g. science terms.
To get the most out of Spelling city, you should register. It is a free service. Once registered pupils will be able to log on at home, and involve their parents in the learning process.
N.B This is an American site so remember their Grades are different to our Year Groups. Also if you decide to use any of the many pre-made lists you will need to check for American spellings.
This weeks Website of the Week comes via a Tweet from Angela Maiers who recommended Shidonni on Twitter.
Shidonni is a fun website where pupils can draw an animal and then click a button to see it come to life! Even better than this, they can also draw items of food to put in the animal's fridge, watch as their animal eats the food and draw habitat for their animal to live in.
You will need to download
e-safety warning - entering personal data
The site requires free registration and requests an email address and birth date. I was able to create an account with a bogus email address and would recommend schools do this for each of their students (e.g. sam@school.com). Actual birthdates of children should not be entered. Instead make up the day and the month and only use the correct year they were born.
If you are using this in a classroom you’ll probably want to create the student accounts in advance.
Into the Book:
Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies reading.ecb.org
Into the Book is designed to enhance the teaching and learning of reading comprehension strategies for primary students. The website focuses on eight strategies that proficient readers use: using prior knowledge, making connections, questioning, visualizing, inferring, summarizing, evaluating, and synthesizing.
You can download posters, songs and worksheets from the Teacher Area. The videos are ideal to show on the interactive whiteboard.
Students and Teachers need a key to begin exploring. Please remember never to use full names on the internet.
Heritage Explorer provides classroom resources and accessible information to create a one-stop shop for teachers seeking to inspire classes at Key Stages 1, 2 and 3. All the information can be downloaded and used for free.
Heritage Explorer provides image-based resources for teaching history, citizenship and many more subjects. With over 360,000 pictures, including historic views of daily life, aerial photography, and modern shots of listed buildings, it combines a wealth of inspirational images with accessible information and a range of teaching ideas.
Heritage Explorer incorporates four main facilities for teachers:
Teaching Activities
This area of the website takes specific images and associates them with a teaching idea to provide a starting point for a lesson plan. Each image has a ‘Key Question’ attached to create a starting point for lessons, supported by activities, worksheets and interactive white board downloads. These can be used ‘off the peg’, or adapted by teachers according to their own lesson requirements.
Images by Theme
These are selections of images grouped into curriculum-based themes. They include Victorian and Edwardian life, WWI, WWII, Women and Children at Work, Slavery, Tudor Buildings and many more. This is a fantastic facility both for teachers preparing lessons, and pupils carrying out their own research.
Interactives
Heritage Explorer hosts a variety of downloads that can be used by teachers on interactive white boards, or by individual pupils at their own computers. These include resources such as interactive time lines that give an overview of a topic; and ‘Tell and Test’ activities. ‘Tell and Test’ interactives give pupils information about a topic and include an activity designed to test and reinforce their knowledge.
Search
Teachers can also use Heritage Explorer to search for and download images of landscapes, buildings or historic scenes to be used to support a host of classroom activities. The search facility also allows teachers to seek out images from the local area, supporting any local community heritage classroom projects.
The Downs CE Primary School's Wiki http://thedowns.wikispaces.com/ Planning for an ICT Club has just got easier with the help of Mark Warner, at The Down's Primary school.
Wikis, like other tools (content management systems, weblogs), are being used by educators as effective teaching and learning tools. The Downs Primary School in Walmer, Kent have created a very interesting and useful Wiki on resources for ICT Clubs.
Many schools have approached me asking where they can find avatars for their children to use on the internet instead of using photos. Have a look at The Downs Web Generator page for links to a variety of websites.
The bishops of the Anglican church worldwide meet at the Lambeth conference every ten years to discuss issues which concern the church and pray together.
The ‘Bishops in Action’ website:
contains material for Religious Education, particularly at KS2
includes powerpoints for the interactive whiteboard, photos, posters and fact files about bishops and their role in the church
encourages multi-cultural, global perspectives in teaching about Christianity
provides 5 acts of Collective Worship for Primary schools
Tikatok beta.tikatok.net Tikatok is a free creative community for kids under 13 where they can write, illustrate, and share their original stories, and have them printed out into real hardcover and paperback books. It was developed by two mothers to encourage the imagination and creativity of their children and children everywhere.
e-learning for Kids www.e-learningforkids.org Learning for Kids is a global nonprofit foundation dedicated to fun and free online learning for children ages 5 – 12. The curriculum includes maths, science, language arts, english, computers and health and life skills. All courseware is available for free and unlimited use by schools, parents and of course, children.
Eeko world pbskids.org/eekoworld/
PBS Kids EekoWorld (cleverly pronounced eeeek-o world), is a brand new site designed to educate children (ages 6-9) about ecosystems, the environment and global collaboration.
The Teachers Guide, features ready-to-use lesson plans, ideas for a variety of literacy-based activities, and links to additional eco-related resources.
Tutpup For
children aged 5 to 11 tutpup.com Tutpup is an exciting and new
safe way of playing games against
children in the UK and across the world. It is free, has no ads, doesn't grab kids personal data and allows them to play competitive maths games against their friends or students from around the world in a safe educational environment. For example, they could try a division game and find themselves instantly challenged by a child in India!
The new Kent website contains information and resources designed to empower schools and professionals to use ICT to effectively support children with SEN.
Computer Lab Favourites teacher.scholastic.com/activities
"Use these interactive, self-contained activities to introduce a topic or enliven your computer time."
Each activity requires no prep and can be completed in 15-30 minutes.
There are 50+ activities to choose from.A list of all the activities can be found on the Teacher Site Map page. Click on a subject tab to see the resources available for each subject.
Nature Detectives www.naturedetectives.org.uk
Lots of resources to help you track the arrival of Spring and investigate nature throughout the year. The best place to start exploring the site is via the Learning Tree.
See also the Curriculum pages for materials to support the key stage 2 curriculum.
Cyberchase pbskids.org/cyberchase/games.html Cyberchase is a website aimed at teaching kids that maths is everywhere, that everyone can be good at it, and that math can be fun. The Cyberchase website is based on the PBS TV show, teachers can view episode guides, video clips, and character descriptions.
The website has two main sections for maths enhancement:
Games - include interactive maths games and puzzles.
Quests - interactive games that allow students to create their own cyber characters and go on cyber quests.
Maths topics covered include measurement, patterns, deductive reasoning, budgeting, growth by doubling, inverse operations, decimals, negative numbers, combinations, place value, angle measurement, area, volume, bar graphs, equivalent fractions, fractions, probability, perimeter/area relationship, patterns in music, scale and size, patterns,functions, estimation, 2d and 3d geometry,symmetry, and percentagess.
Interactives www.learner.org/interactives
""Interactives" provides educators and students with strategies, content, and activities that can enhance and improve students' skills in a variety of curricular areas. "
Elements of a Story
Learn secrets for telling a good story, explore narratives -- heroes, plot and background. Then, write a story of your own.www.learner.org/interactives/story
Spelling Bee
Listen to three stories, one at a time, and then spell words from each story. (Three stories per year group) www.learner.org/interactives/spelling/
Timelines.tv www.timelines.tv "A thousand year timeline of British history, loaded with five hours’ worth of video content." All free! Another example of excellent free content available for teacher and student use.
The material on the site comes from “Timelines” a BBC series which won the BAFTA last year for the best educational resource for Secondary Schools.
The clips are found on three parallel interactive timelines, from 1066 to the present:
The purple timeline is full of content relating to Changing lives (social);
The brown timeline is Rulers and Ruled (political);
The green timeline is Nations and Empire (imperial).
As you scroll along the timelines, titles of videos on offer pop up. When you click on them they load and are available to view in chapters. You can also download a transcript of each documentary. If you don’t like the scrolling to find titles approach, you can click on the tab ‘index’ at the top of the page to see a list of contents.
Making IT happen http://www.cc4g.net/makeithappen/ The 2008 Make IT Happen competition is for primary school students aged nine to eleven, across the UK. Great fun and cash prizes to be had regionally and nationally.‘
Educational Software and Web 2.0 Wiki educationalsoftware.wikispaces.com
A wiki by Suzie Vesper (and other contributors) that provides resources, links and tutorials for a wide range of freeware, commercial software and Web 2.0 tools (including blogs).
Sports Relief www2.sportrelief.com/ Sport Relief Weekend 14th - 16th March Mystery Challenge
Challenge your students to solve a mystery about a young person who lives in Brazil, using our interactive resources!
Play a Game
Could you live in a Brazilian Slum? There's only one way to find out - test your nerve with this brilliant game and see if you've got what it takes.
World Maths Day 5th March www.worldmathsday.com
Students from across the globe will be uniting online to play each other in real time mental arithmetic games. These are tailored to the students' levels so students of all ages can participate.
BBC Stay Safe Website www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/help/safesurfing/ Cartoons, quizzes, screensavers and wallpapers - lots of informtation on how to stay safe.
This challenging, but addictive, geography quiz is sure to excite your class as they click their way throughout the world (via a map). There are twelve difficulty levels.
Big Schools Birdwatch www.rspb.org.uk/schoolswatch/ The Big Schools' Birdwatch is a free activity for schools throughout the UK, which the RSPB run every year in January and February.
By observing the birds that visit their school grounds, young people and teachers help us monitor UK bird numbers.
A free teacher's activity pack is available and there's lots of information and resources on the RSPB Schools pages to help teachers carry out the activity.
BMW Safe on the Street www.bmweducation.co.uk 'Safe on the Street' is an interactive website resource covering road safety issues to educate primary school children at school and home. The resource is aimed at seven to eleven year olds and provides road safety education in a novel, interactive, and fun way whilst helping to develop relevant ICT skills.
With thanks to Elaine, ICT assistant at St. Dennis CP School for recommending BMW Safe on the Street for website of the week.
Northumberland Grid for learning have produced fantastic animated stories for the whiteboard with an extensive bank of resources: printable version, songs, lesson plans, activities to support thinking skills
Boucle d'Or et les Trois Ours. (Goldilocks and the Three Bears).
Also German and Spanish
The story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is presented as an interactive text which is read aloud in the chosen language by native speakers. The text is enhanced by an extensive bank of resources and activities to support language learning and thinking skills strategies. The resources include worksheets, Powerpoint presentations, smart notebook files, thinking skills activities, songs, word and picture cards, phrase cards as well as phonic grids and word cards. There is also a printable A3 or A4 version to use as a big book. http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/languages/Goldilocks/french.htm
Les Trois Boucs Bourrus(The Three Billy Goats Gruff).
Also in German, Spanish and Italian.
Another great interactive story from Northumberland Grid for Learning, accompanied with resources. http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/languages/Goats/
Le Corbeau et le Renard (The Crow and the Fox),
It includes lots of Thinking Skills Activities: card sorting for phonics, adjectives, nouns, verbs and phrases, storyboarding, Ven diagram as well drama activities, songs and games.
Les Souris Courageuses (The Brave Mice)
Le Rat des Villes et Le Rat des Champs (The City and the Field Rat)
Bring hand drawn animals to life onscreen
Tikatok
Nature Detectives
Making IT happen
Sports Relief
