Monday, September 3, 2012

Teaching News

Teaching News

Summer Updates to our Teaching Websites

Posted: 02 Sep 2012 02:00 AM PDT

After a summer break from posting here on Teaching News, I wanted to share some of the things that I’ve been working on over the past few weeks. As well as spending lots of time with my family, I’ve been updating my Teaching Websites and adding new resources, so here is a review of some of the latest updates:

Teaching Ideas

I’ve made a number of new resources for Teaching Ideas, including a multiplication wheel that children can create to help them to remember their times tables. This was suggested by someone on our Facebook page and I’m keen to hear of any other resource suggestions that people have. If you have any ideas for new resources (or you would like to vote on the current suggestions), please look at our new Uservoice page and get involved!

Our ‘Inspirations’ posters have always been popular and I’ve just made some for Art. They can be used as a starting point for discussion about different art topics or for your classroom displays.

I’ve also started work on a new set of ‘Picture Puzzles’ Maths resources. Children are challenged to answer the Maths calculations and colour the 1-100 grid the appropriate colour, which then reveals a picture! These have been really popular so far and I’m planning to make sets of these for different abilities and covering different Maths topics.

This is just a small selection of the new additions to Teaching Ideas, so look at the New Ideas page to see the complete list.

Teaching Library

I’ve also been reading lots of children’s books, thinking of related teaching ideas and creating educational resources for them. You can find all of these at the Teaching Library.

Teaching Appz

 

I’ve also been getting lots of suggestions for great educational apps from teachers and app developers and many of these have been added to Teaching Appz. Some of my favourite apps from the recent additions include Franklin Frog (a wonderful interactive book about the life cycle of a frog), Make Me Music (a great sound garden app with recording abilities) and Whiz Racer (a car racing Android app that helps children practise their mental calculations).

Teaching Events

 

I’ve also spent considerable time updating Teaching Events. The previous version of the site only listed different events that can be used in for educational activities in the classroom. The new site now also features related teaching ideas as well as free downloadable resources. The site also looks much better and it is easier to find useful events for your lessons.

I’ve also continued to add videos to Teaching Videos and I have a long list of videos still to add!

Phew! I hope that my Teaching Websites are useful to you over the coming academic year. Posts on Teaching News will continue more regularly now that the new school year is starting here in the UK, so feel free to get in touch if you have any comments or suggestions!