Tale Time September 21, 2007
Posted by Gareth in : English/Literacy , add a commenthttp://www.taletime.co.uk/
Tale Time is a super new site from Victoria Parsons. She’s combined her love of writing, stories, kids, teaching and radio to produce a selection of free audio stories. My favourite part of the site is the Whose Tale Is It Anyway? section which explores classic fairy tales from the point of view of different characters. At the moment you can listen to five versions of the story of Cinderella. The recordings are really entertaining and the production values are superb. Well worth checking out.
Storyline Online September 18, 2007
Posted by Gareth in : English/Literacy , 1 comment so farhttp://www.storylineonline.net/
Like an American Jackanory, Storyline Online presents lots of childrens’ stories read by members of the Screen Actors Guild members.
It’s a great site, even if the celebrities (apart from Tia and Tamera) are likely to be more familiar to teachers rather than students Each video presentation comes in a variety of sizes and is accompanied by some activity ideas.
(Thanks to Siobhan for sending in the link)
Mixed Up Animals Activities September 17, 2007
Posted by Gareth in : English/Literacy , add a commentThree websites to support “Mixed Up Animals” creative writing activities…
http://www.harperchildrens.com/games/switch/animals/index.htm
http://www.theshadowfang.uwclub.net/splicer/splicer.html
English Funnies September 12, 2007
Posted by Gareth in : English/Literacy, Fun (Teacher) , add a commentI’ve linked to two humorous pages from the TeenLit website highlighting some of the difficulties of the English language. You could probably use some of the examples with older primary students.
Make Beliefs Comics September 12, 2007
Posted by Gareth in : English/Literacy, Fun (Student), P.S.H.E. , add a commenthttp://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
This simple online comic creator might be useful in English or PSHE lessons. Once you get the hang of the controls it’s fairly quick and easy to make strips. There are ten characters to choose from, speech and thought balloons and panel prompts. Pupils can even print out their finished creations or email them to their friends.
Footee September 11, 2007
Posted by Gareth in : English/Literacy, Maths/Numeracy, Various Subjects , add a commenthttp://www.thefa.com/Footee
I was delighted to read, on Merlin John’s news blog, that the excellent Footee website is making a return. Saved from oblivion, thanks to site creator Phil Clegg, it’s now found a home as part of the Football Association’s website. In Footee, students complete educational games in order to earn the “currency” needed to fund their own fantasy football team. I used the site a lot with students back when it was first online. It’s a great method of reinforcing a wide variety of topics in a very fun way.
Roald Dahl Day September 7, 2007
Posted by Gareth in : English/Literacy , add a comment(Click here for link)
It’s not far off (in terms of teaching weeks at least!) so it’s worth thinking ahead to this year’s Roald Dahl Day. The 13th September 2007 is once again the date to celebrate the work of this great storyteller. The link at the top of this article points to the new 2007 official site. Resources and ideas should be appearing there sometime during June but if you want to start planning then check out the 2006 event pages.
Other useful pages: RoaldDahlFans.com, ShowMe.uk, Primary Resources Book Ideas
Riddles Software September 7, 2007
Posted by Gareth in : English/Literacy, Software , add a commenthttp://www.riddles.sussex.ac.uk/
The University of Sussex has just released some free software that was originally developed for use as part of their Riddles Project. There are three titles available to download. ArcShark is a numbers game. WordBird allows students to explore stories sentence by sentence. ClassiCat involves arranging words into groups.
Wordplay Grammar Clinic September 7, 2007
Posted by Gareth in : English/Literacy , add a commenthttp://www.elmwood.co.uk/wordplay/grammar
Branding and design agency Elwood have got in touch to let me know about the grammar clinic they’ve recently publish on the Web for their clients. It covers common English language mistakes and includes simple grammar rules. Although they’re not the target audience, the site would be great for teachers who feel that they need to brush up on some of their grammar knowledge.
Animal Collectives September 7, 2007
Posted by Gareth in : English/Literacy , add a commenthttp://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/collective/
These pages from the Ask Oxford site contain a huge of collective of terms for groups of animals. There’s everything from an army of ants to a cohort of zebras. It would be very useful for those looking at collective nouns.
