Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Teaching News

Teaching News

Resource Site of the Week: The Literacy Shed

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 09:00 AM PST

Our latest ‘Resource Site of the Week‘ is The Literacy Shed!

The Literacy Shed is created by Rob Smith, a Year 5 teacher in Manchester. Rob has been using films, animations and images in his literacy teaching since he was an NQT back in 2005.

The first animation that he used with a class was The Piano by Aidan Gibbons. A man sits alone at his piano playing a beautiful, yet haunting melody whilst he remembers events from his life.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rob says that ‘this film resonates with the children because of its simplicity. The boys like the war memories and the girls like the love story between the man and his wife. The children were so engaged they were able to talk and write in character. They were able to hypothesise about the events and how the character felt about each one. Day 2 of the film unit and a boy who normally did anything to get out of literacy work asked, 'Is this really literacy though, Sir? It isn't boring!' The children were hooked and so was I! I was going to use films as often as was appropriate in my Literacy teaching.’ You can find Rob’s ideas for The Piano here.

The Literacy Shed

Rob began to collect animations to use in class and needed somewhere other than a memory stick to store them. So, Rob started a website and the Literacy Shed now has over 30 sheds filled with animations, images and films. The shed is growing day by day with animations being adding to the existing sheds and new sheds added all the time. People are now sharing animations with Rob via Twitter and the Literacy Shed Facebook page.

The whole site is free although if teachers make a donation then they can then access the resource shed, where people share lesson plans and worksheets to go along with the animations. Visit the Literacy Shed here!