aclJohn's Family Learning Finds

'Teaching Ideas' is mainly intended for practitioners working with primary-age children (i.e. ages 5 to 11). Although it has been designed with UK teachers in mind, all ideas can of course be used by teachers around the world.

The ideas, activities and worksheets are organised according to a number of subjects (those covered in the English National Curriculum). The "Early Years" section contains ideas for use with children aged 5 or below, and the "Foreign Languages" area has resour...

I know I'm pushing my luck, no more than the Met Office last year, but as the summer weather approaches, many family learning practitioners will be thinking about ways of engaging with parents/guardians/carers/etc. and their children about the importance of staying safe in the sun.

Sunwise Learning is a new website offering games and activities for children, as well as lots of lesson ideas and resources for family learning practitioners.

Practitioners can also register for a free newsle...

Silly Books have been included in the eMagazine in the past but. now many of their books have a "click through" option which allows switch users to turn the page. Just set the switch to "mouse click" and place the mouse arrow over next.

This doesn't just aid inclusion it also make these books much better for Family Learning Practitioners to use on an Interactive White Board (IWB).

Take a closer look at http://www.sillybooks.net/Catalog.htm.

"Use this reader's response activity to analyze the characters in any book then, print and collect the scrapbook pages."

Character Scrapbook...

• allows learners to analyse characters in books;
• could be an excellent resource for...
  • collaborative work, using an Interactive White Board (IWB) - (a wireless keyboard & mouse would help considerably), and/or
  • individual work.
    

Users...

• type in the name of the book;
• type in the name of one of the characters (If working in small ...

Yet another website, in fact a scholastic game, where visitors can create a creature.  Creature Creator can be used for writing or art activities.

Visit http://www.scholastic.com/underlandchronicles/creaturecreator.htm to try it out.

P.S. Here is my first effort...

GRABBA BEAST lets users build their own Beast from a huge, ever-growing library of body types and parts —

• some scary,
  
• some cute,
  
• most are ridiculous
  

Hitting RANDOMIZE will generate a random creation, or visitors can view other Beasts in the BEAST GALLERY.

The resulting images can be used to encourage learners to...

• write stories
• improve their vocabulary - listening skills (describing a given beast or identifying a beast from a descr...

Internet Safety With Professor Garfield provides Family Learning Practitioners with an engaging set of lessons that learners and their parents/guardians/carers etc., should remember. Practitioners will also find a teaching guide and printable certificates of completion for their learners.

This engaging and useful site for web safety ...

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...