Just a short note to wish all Resources for Teaching blog readers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

It’s the final day of term today, but Learning Centres will still be open throughout the vacation. Please see our Christmas Vacation Opening Hours for more information.

National Children's Bureau

We recently renewed our organisational membership to National Children’s Bureau (NCB) which includes our subscription to the Children & Young People Now magazine. NCB also have a website containing useful resources and links to other relevant websites as well as e-mail bulletins.

As part of our organisational membership, all staff are entitled to register for their own account online which gives access to member only resources and enables you to customise e-mail bulletins depending on your interests. IF you are a member of University staff and interested in this, please contact me for more information.

Unfortunately, our subscription doesn’t include access for students to member only resources, however I contacted NCB recently and they have a special concessionary rate for students who wish to register. The current cost is £50/year which gives you online access, bulletins and policy updates, discount on training events, conferences and publications, as well as the subscription to Children & Young People Now (usually this alone costs £85!). There’s more information on the website and you can apply online (will just need to provide proof of student status).

SparkleBox – 1000s FREE printable Early Years and KS1 teaching resources – phonics, posters, labels, signs, activities and more! via kwout

Thanks to a colleague, I’ve just been made aware of the Sparklebox website, which has loads of printable resources for use in the classroom. The main focus is for Foundation and Key Stage 1, but they also have a separate website, SparkleboKS2, for KS2 resources.

Both websites cover a wide range of topics with numerous resources for numeracy and literacy. They also include signs and labels for use in the classroom, and classroom management material such as monitoring charts and templates for certificates. All material is free to use as long as credit is given to Sparklebox and the materials are not used commercially.

You can browse the sites from the homepage, or just search for certain topics of interest. I personally find the website a bit too busy, but you can go directly to the search screens at Sparklebox and SparkleboKS2.

There are some really great resources on there, might use some in the future for displays!

I’ve had a few enquiries about the use of images in teaching (and teaching plans for assignments) so I thought it might be worth sharing some advice on the blog in the form of some questions and answers.

Where can I find images?

Aside from physical images (there are numerous chart packs, photo packs and interactive whiteboard resources covering a variety of topics in the Teaching Practice Collection at Walsall Learning Centre), there are a number of different online image databases we subscribe to which include still images and also videos. Some main ones of interest for Education are the Education Image Gallery and BBC Motion Gallery (both of these are paid for by the university and therefore require you to log in first).   The images and videos are available for you to use within your assignments and also in the classroom.

There are also a number of freely available image resources on the web which you can use to fnd images for in the classroom or your assignments. One particularly useful resource is Flickr, which includes a number of Creative Commons licensed images. You need to be sure that the license enables you to use the images, but you can search for just the images available to use by from the Creative Commons page, or in the Advanced Search:

Flickr: Advanced Search via kwout

Teachers TV is another excellent resource and has lots of videos, images and teaching resources available free of charge.

What about Google images?

Google images can be useful for a quick search for an image, for example if you are unsure what something is – but you do need to very careful about using these images in your work or in the classroom. Google gets the images from other people’s websites, and many of these are copyrighted material. If there’s one you want to use, go to the original website the image is from and check to see if there is a license. If you can’t see one, contact the website owner to ask if you could use the image. Be clear what you would like to use it for – many people are happy for you to use their images so long as it is for educational use only. You must check beforehand though, and be sure to reference the image source. Alternatively, you can limit your search to images with different licenses using the Advanced Google Image Search (simply change setting for Usage Rights).

One such example of this is the National Portrait Gallery who a student contacted recently about using their images and kindly passed the information on to me. National Portrait Gallery are happy for you to use content from their website with “© National Portrait Gallery, London” as long as credit is included when printing/copying.

How do I reference an image?

The new 2009 Harvard Referencing guide has an example of referencing images and online images, please see page 11 which includes referencing images from books and print resources as well as images from databases (e.g. Education Image Gallery) and images from websites (e.g. Flickr).

I’m confused, is there anyone who can help?

Yes – if there is anything I’ve mentioned here that you are unsure about or if you’d like some help finding images, checking licenses or referencing an image, please feel free to contact me. There is also some useful advice on the JISC Digital Media website which supports the use of digital media in UK Further and Higher Education.

During the summer, most sections of the Teaching Practice Collecion were heavily weeded, removing all the older unused books. However, I didn’t get chance to do the literature sections. I’m now working on these areas and over the next few weeks there are likely to be some of the older, unused children’s literature for sale at Walsall Learning Centre. You may wish to buy these for your own interest, for preparing lessons, or to take to schools you are working in.

This week has seen the arrival of lots of lovely new books, all of which are now available to borrow from the Teaching Practice Collection.

This week’s new books includes some new introductory sports books (great for introducing primary age children to different sports such as baseball or judo), some GCSE and A-level Maths text books, history books (primary), as well as some new fiction and picture books.

There’s also the final book in the Maths Framework lessons, and another Ready Resources book (including CD full of activities for the interactive whiteboard) for primary science.

I’m hoping to order some more new stock soon, but please, as always, let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like us to stock.

Just a short note to let everyone know that this week  (1st-7th Nov) is Dyslexia Awareness Week. If you’re out on placement in a school this week, maybe you can highlight awareness of dyslexia by holding a special assembly using one of the recommended presentations, or simply by putting up some of the posters around the school. You could incorporate it into one of your lessons to hold a discussion on dyslexia (there’s plenty of information on the British Dyslexia Association website).

Is your school doing anything special for Dyslexia Awareness Week?

So, the Cambridge Primary Review was published last week – any initial thoughts?

I haven’t had chance to take a good look at it myself yet, but there’s an excellent summary booklet which I thought I’d share in case you haven’t yet seen it. We’ll also be ordering some copies of the full report for the Learning Centre.

Has anyone seen the new Fantastic Mr Fox film? It’s getting some really good reviews and I imagine cinemas are busy this half term week with both this and Up! currently screening.

I’ve just been on the Puffin website and noticed they had a classroom activities section for teachers including an activity sheet for Fantastic Mr Fox (covering phonics and roleplay activities). Could be a good opportunity to demonstrate alliteration with a topical film that some children may have seen (or even a potential class trip!).

There’s other Roald Dahl worksheets on there too, including some of the other Dahl books we’ve just got new copies of – available in Teaching Practice on the back wall (in fiction) at TP 829.3/DAH.

The No Fuss photocopiable books I ordered have now arrived and are available to borrow at 001/NOB.

These cover all  subjects (there is a table at the beginning which demonstrates where they fit into the primary curriculum), and there is a book for each year group 1-6.

Of course, you can photocopy these using the MFD in the Teaching Practice room, but the books are also available to borrow if you wish.

Remember, please contact me if you have any suggestions for new stock.