aclJohn's Family Learning Finds

Renault's Safety Matters website can be used to support Family Learning practitioners with their work on road safety:

Safety Matters...

• is designed for and aimed at 7-11 year olds (and their teachers / parents) and offers free and interactive resources.
• provides Family Learning Practitioners with...
  • lesson plans,
  • assembly plans,
  • student worksheets and
  • interactive whiteboard tools which deliver road safety messages whilst supporting...
    • Key Stage 2 PSHE,
    • literacy and
    • numeracy curriculum.
    ...

Practical Action are a development charity who are offering lots of free resources that are ideal for Family Learning Practitioners and/or Initial Teacher Training. The resources are linked to their work in helping some of the world’s poorest people to transform their lives for the better.

The Education area of their site has a wide range of content for practitioners and learners, including:

• Videos showing how designers make their sustainable products (useful for Design Technology);
• A su...

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Foundation has produced Storyline Online, a streaming video site where SAG members read a wide selection of children’s books.

Children can...

• follow along in their own books; or
• just watch the video, which includes the illustrations.
• Toggle closed-captioning; or
• to make it even more book-like, turn off the sound as well; this kind of defeats the purpose of watching the videos, but, I suppose, it’s nice to know users could do this.

There are additional acti...

A Maths Dictionary for Kids has been updated for 2010 to include...

• more terms;
• definitions; and
• visual aids than ever before. 

A Maths Dictionary for Kids provides simple, clear definitions of math terms. Each definition includes a small diagram or simple activity to illustrate the term's definition.

A Maths Dictionary for Kids is a great resource for learners for homework assignments and/or individual course assignments. The visual clues provided by in the dictionary are useful for tho...

If like me, you love the art of paper folding, (I blame the Rupert Bear Annual) then you will definitely get hooked with the Origami Club Website.

Origami Club is a free comprehensive online resource for paper art lovers and origami enthusiasts full of free and easy origami diagrams and animations.

With Origami Club, users can browse through various origami creations and watch and/or find directions on how to create them.

The activities and resources on You Are Here are free to use. The site is ideal for use in Family Learning and/or as an Initial Teacher Training Resource.

In the Parents and Teachers section You are here has provided a brief description of each store in the mall. They have also provided...

• fact sheets,

• lesson plans and

• classroom activities that complement the site.

The site can be used to support lessons in...

• critical thinking,

• language arts,

• writing,

• media literacy,

• business, ...

James Ratcliffe, a Design and Technology Teacher at Milton Abbey School in Dorset, started making PSHE and Tutor Time PowerPoint presentations while working at 'Rossmore Community College'.

The shared presentations are free for download, modification, sharing and use in teaching.  They are designed to be projected using a digital projector on to a whiteboard, wall or anywhere where the whole class can see.

The presentations are not designed to simply 'show' the class. Practitioners shoul...

Carex have created a set of educational resources, called ‘Hands up for Hygiene’, which aim to enhance children's understanding of the link between good hand hygiene and the prevention of the spread of germs.

The site has resources for...

• pre-school,
• primary and
• secondary schools,

...as well as tips for helping children to think about hygiene at home.

There are also songs to download and sing. Family Learning Practitioners working in/with schools can even take advantage of a free...

Those of you who work with young learners, Family Learning Practitioners, and those engaged in Initial Teacher Training, may well find the interactive Facts of the Day Calendar an invaluable tool; produced by Mandy Barrow, fom Woodlands Junior School, the first three months of the year are already available.

In her words...

"This is a new calendar for 2010. I hope it will stimulate lots of thinking and discussion in classrooms."

The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has three excellent interactive activities about dinosaurs.

There is a virtual tour in which learners can tour the museum and see close-ups of exhibits. The interactive time line provides learners with an overview of the...

• Paleozoic,
• Mesozoic, and
• Cenozoic eras.

The highlight of the interactive activities is the virtual dinosaur dig where learners use a variety of archeologists' tools to unearth fossils and then assemble them.

Visit ...