Texting ‘helps pupils to spell’

Nearly missed telling u about this :->> BBC announce that texting’ helps pupils to spell’. AFAIK it is true! …. isn’t it?

Publish your work

Youblisher.com is a terrific way to publish children’s (or your own) work. You will not believe just how easy it is to make superb publications from your pdfs.

Big Garden Bird Watch

This weekend 30 – 31 January 2010 see the ‘Big Garden Birdwatch’. This check on the bird species in our gardens takes place every year at this time and is well worth generating involvement from children. This is just one of the things that they say about themselves:
For the past 30 years, we’ve been asking our supporters to count the birds in their garden. During this time, more than 3 million hours have been clocked up watching and enjoying the birds that visit our gardens (that’s more than 380 years!), and every year, some 6 million birds are spotted by you. The Big Garden Birdwatch has never been more important than it is today, with the results from half a million of you (that’s 280,00 gardens surveyed, which is rather a lot!) helping us create a ‘snapshot’ picture of bird numbers in each region, showing us that some of our birds are disappearing in scary numbers.

The New Primary Curriculum – England

The New Primary Curriculum has now become an addition on the QCDA web site. This is what they say about it:
The primary curriculum has been redesigned. The new curriculum includes: curriculum aims; essentials for learning and life; six areas of learning; religious education. The curriculum introduces a statutory requirement for languages at key stage 2 and meets statutory requirements for inclusion (Including all learners) and health and safety. The new curriculum becomes statutory in 2011.

BBC 2 Digital Revolution

The BBC 2 series about digital technologies ‘The Virtual Revolution‘ begins on Saturday 30th January – time to set your technology to record ! This could be a series that all teachers should watch and note … for many, many reasons.

iPod touch project

iPod touch Project – Well worth a read by those who are looking for ‘hand held’ devices that may make a significant difference – Scotland ahead again.

The Wild Web Woods

It may be a little dated now but could still be useful.

The Wild Web Woods is a game instituted by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Its purpose is for people/children to get to know and respect children’s rights and protect children from any kind of violence. The game is based on the Council’s ‘Internet Literacy’ handbook which has 21 fact sheets on important issues and contains lots of help for teachers and parents.

The Wild Web Woods comes in 22 European languages.

Google Street View at selected National Trust Properties

Ollie Bray draws my attention to this new use of Google Street View by the National Trust. Click on an image of a property and get taken for a virtual look round using the power of ‘street view’.

1 to 100 – age

Just worth a look and a show and then a talk … here

The Great Plant Hunt

Danny Nicholson points out (on Twitter) a great site for teaching the science of plants. Its called The Great Plant Hunt.

This is what they say for themselves:

To mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, commissioned and funded by the Wellcome Trust, has created The Great Plant Hunt. This exciting project will encourage children to explore the natural world around them and join other schools in the biggest ever school science project. Forming part of the Darwin 200 initiative, The Great Plant Hunt invites primary school children to follow in the footsteps of Darwin by going on nature walks in and around their school grounds. They’ll find out more about plants and in the process learn key scientific skills.