Monday, May 7, 2012

Teaching News

Teaching News

10 Resources for National Share a Story Month

Posted: 06 May 2012 02:00 AM PDT

May is ‘National Share-a-Story’ month each year, so I thought that it might be useful to highlight 10 great resources that can help you to use stories in your classrooms:

1) Lots of popular video sharing sites have stories that you can watch being read online. I’ve organised lots of these videos into a ‘Stories’ category on Teaching Videos to save you hunting for them! Here is one of them:

Click here to view the embedded video.

2) The Society for Storytelling has a number of useful resources, as well as a directory of storytellers who can be invited to your school.

3) Signed Stories is a wonderful website, featuring lots of great books to see in sign language and with subtitles. The site aims to improve the literacy of deaf children but the videos are a fantastic resource that can be enjoyed by all.

4) The Teaching Library has hundreds of free activity ideas and resources linked to popular children’s books. The site is less than a year old but it already had almost 100 books listed on the site, with more added each week.

5) The Story Museum has a huge collection of stories that you can read. There are also audio versions which can be played online… a wonderful resource!

6) Lots of popular teaching sites have resources for writing and sharing stories in the classroom. Take a look at Primary Resources, Teaching Ideas, Teachers Pet and Twinkl.

7) Storynory publish free audio stories every week. You can subscribe and download these as a podcast or listen to them online.

8 ) The Federation of Children’s Book Groups has a huge collection of links to book resources, children’s publishers and sites for different authors / illustrators.

9) Rory’s Story Cubes are a great resource that can be used by individuals, groups and whole classes to encourage and enjoy story telling. There is also a related iPhone app.

Click here to view the embedded video.

10) There are also lots of great apps for iPhone / iPad / Android that can support story telling and writing in the classroom. Take a look at the selection listed on Teaching Appz, including The Land of Me, Puppet Pals and Mad Libs.

What are your favourite story-telling resources?