Primary Teacher UK

Pa Pa Paa Live

Pa Pa Paa LIVE! is an online video broadcasting service for schools, delivering webcasts from a rural school in Ghana to classrooms across the UK: www.papapaa.org/live
 
The aim of Pa Pa Paa LIVE! is to increase young people’s understanding of Fairtrade and the everyday lives of young people in a cocoa growing community. It provides a child-eye view of Ghanaian life available to schools on subscription.
 
Schools can watch a free webcast at www.papapaalive.org/broadcast/taster in which the children from a Fairtrade cocoa growing district in rural Ghana present their hopes and dreams for the future. It was made to celebrate International Day of the African Child on 16th June, and highlights the hope and aspirations young people in Africa have for their futures; free from poverty and full of opportunities.
 
In this webcast, the children discuss their career aspirations, mentioning professions including footballer, doctor, cocoa farmer, pastor, and journalist. They consider the lengthy training needed to become a qualified doctor and the cost of attending university. One pupil talks about moving to Accra, the capital of Ghana, while another prefers to stay in the countryside and be a cocoa farmer like his parents. One boy would like to have ten children, and intends to pay for them by becoming a pilot!
 
The students at the Ghana school are filming the webcasts themselves. Your students can ask them questions online, and then the students in Ghana can answer them in their webcast. Tune in to learn more about the lives of pupils from a school built with Fairtrade money.
 
Pa Pa Paa LIVE! is aimed at Key Stages 2 and 3, and supports teaching on fair trade, geography, PSHE, the global dimension, citizenship and ICT. It is backed up by comprehensive online teaching resources on Fairtrade and chocolate at www.papapaa.org, and a DVD and photo pack.

Chembakolli: Life and change in an Indian village

Here is some information about the new edition of the best-selling Key Stage 2 photopack, 'Chembakolli: Life and change in an Indian village'.

Thousands of schools around the UK study Chembakolli as part of the Key Stage 2 curriculum and part of QCA Unit 10 ‘A village in India’. This new pack really brings Chembakolli to life in the classroom.

The new edition of 'Chembakolli: Life and change in an Indian village' includes:

• 30 brand new A4 photocards to encourage discussion
• a booklet with useful information for teachers
• a CD-Rom with electronic lesson plans, classroom activities, audio clips and images
• a colourful timeline poster.

It provides a rich insight into the ways in which modern-day village life is changing, and covers issues ranging from health and education to the environment, trade and land rights. The activities also seed key geographical concepts such as diversity, sustainability and interdependence.

There is a special introductory offer until the end of May, were you can save £10 off the regular retail price of £35 of the new pack by calling 01460 23 8000 and quoting the reference ‘Gudalur’ (a town near Chembakolli).

Chembakolli online march from ActionAid

For UK primary schools, Chembakolli is probably the most famous village in India and December 08 sees the start of celebrations to mark 20 years of village life.

Chembakolli, a village in southern India, was reclaimed following an unprecedented march in December 1988 by 10,000 Adivasi (indigenous people) from the Nilgiri Hills. Coming together to reclaim their tribal rights to live in the forests near the town of Gudalur, the march was a huge success, winning the respect of the government and local people. The Adivasi were able to settle in many villages on the land, including Chembakolli, as well as establish their own school and hospital.

To celebrate this anniversary, ActionAid is launching an online march, enabling teachers and pupils to create their own character and personalised placard before joining the virtual march.

Starting in Gudalur, the virtual route follows the footsteps of the real march, twenty years ago. In the town, the marchers can click on local landmarks, including market stalls, the hospital and school, and meet real life people and read their stories. As more people join the march, the route will extend into Chembakolli where visitors can learn about life in the village by clicking on parts of the village, local people, and an elephant.

As part of the celebrations, ActionAid has also produced The Chembakolli story, a beautifully narrated audio CD accompanied by a story/activity book and poster. The CD covers the events of the past 20 years in six parts, each with descriptive sound and music clips recorded in the village. It is ideal for classroom listening and interpretive learning and is available for £20 (inc p&p).

Janet Convery, head of ActionAid Schools, said: “The story of the gentle Adivasi people claiming their right to live peacefully in lush forests of southern India has captured the hearts of primary school children in the UK. With the new story book resource, they can now hear the full story of the past 20 years told in the words of Marigan, an inspirational village elder well known to Chembakolli followers.

“The Adivasi people are always amazed by the support they get from schools and are looking forward to seeing the online march grow as children join the 20th anniversary celebrations.”

To and join the online march or find our more about our Chembakolli resources go to www.actionaid.org.uk/march

Webcams

The BBC have compiled a list of webcams from around England. From cities to animals to famous landmarks all of the webcams are BBC approved which generally means they are suitable for use in the classroom. Very useful for comparing and contrasting locations in Geography.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/webcams/

Quo Mapping Version 2.0

I wrote an article about Quo Mapping in December last year. I used it for a while as my own mapping software for walking / cycling but then found the interface just too messy and went back to Memory Map. I was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded version 2 of their software early last week.

Version 2 however has had a totally rewrite by the look of it and after a few short days trialling the software I'm ready to purchase my maps and pay out for the Pro version. The new interface is totally different and now very simple to use - they have obviously listened to their customers!

The reason that I'm mentioning the software on here is that the free version, there are two versions (Quo Go and Quo Pro), both initially come with an atlas style map of the UK and allow you to download individual map tiles at very cheap prices.

How can this be used in school?

? You could download the map tile with your school on - a OS 1:25,000 tile is £1.95 and OS 1:50,000 is £0.99)
? Maybe download the aerial tile with your school (10m - FREE and 1m is £4.95).
? You could download the map tiles of areas that you are studying - Llandudno for example.
? Once the tiles are downloaded how about looking at the 3D views? Or planning your trip on the 1:25,000 scale map?
? Maybe you could use the maps to teach the children about contour lines in conjunction with the 3D views.
? Or just let the children explore the map that comes with the software.

I know that there is already a lot of free mapping software on the internet (Google Earth being the best example) but I really believe that our children need to use real OS maps (both computer based and paper). At such a low cost the software is a real winner and should be added to your list of free resources. I believe that there will also be educational pricing in the future so it could be even more of a bargain.

Link: http://www.mapyx.com/

Free Flight Simulator on Google Earth

Here's something that I saw on The Gadget Show which children may like in class - a flight simulator built into Google Earth.  Can they fly the plane to the capital on England, Wales and Scotland?

Download the latest version of Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/). Load up Google Earth as usual, click on the globe, and hold down CTL + ALT + A. This will bring up a dialog box allowing you to choose a plane, and a runway ... and get flying!

The plane can be controlled by the keyboard, mouse or a joystick. The full controls can be found at the Google Earth website.  Once you've activated it, the Flight Sim can be entered and exited through the Flight Simulator option in the TOOLS menu, allowing you to change plane and airport.

EDIT: On some PCs you to need hold down CTL + WINDOWS + A instead of the above.

The Potato Story

In support of the “Year of Food and Farming”, McCain have created “The Potato Story” www.thepotatostory.co.uk. The website is fully aligned to the National Curriculum (Key Stage 2) and aims to help with teaching primary school children about food origins, plant growth and nutrition. There’s lots of interactive modules to make it more exciting for the children and it is a great resource for teachers.

Children to manage their own time

Last week was our Multi-cultural week and the children have really enjoyed the activities they've completed.  I thought that I'd give my class (Y6) the opportunity to manage their own time. Each child was given a sheet of activities (and some relevant resources) to do with Mexico, six of which they had to complete, by Friday lunchtime.  Some tasks, such as the dance and games task needed to be completed at certain times during the day obviously.

The result is rather surprising - All but two of my children managed to complete all six activities, with a number of them completing all the tasks  (usually finishing them at home as self-administored homework!).  For me the week was rather hectic, not knowing what each child was planning to do was awkward on Monday, but by the end of the day it had settled down.  The hardest part was keeping on top of everyone, especially those who find it more difficult to manage their time!

Most importantly for me was that the children (well most!) proved how they could manage their own time reasonably well and that they enjoyed the week, learning a lot about Mexico, it's history and it's customs.

For those that are interested, you can download the sheet I created for the children and the resources above.  Let me know if you want the 'original' Word file to alter.

Intrepid Berkeley Explorer

Next week we are scrapping the normal timetable for our annual 'Multi-Cultural Arts Week'.  During this week we each pick a country base all our work around it.  A teacher at school gave me a link to Intrepid Berkeley Explorer, a website with free videos and pictures of famous locations and landmarks around the world.  A lot of the pictures are large and it takes a long while to download them, even on a fast connection, but it's worth looking at if you're ever teaching about another country.

Link: http://www.geocities.com/intrepidberkeleyexplorer/

Friendship Friday and School Link

Save the Children's fundraising day for primary schools is Friday 25th May this year.   Friendship Friday is a day for children to learn about their peers around the world, fundraise for them and explore friendships.

All schools wishing to take part will receive a pack containing friendship activities, fundraising ideas and, if they would like, blank friendship fun-bands to decorate. Schools that take part and send in donations will be offered the chance to make global friends through Save the Children's School Link resource as well the chance to win a visit from children's author and illustrator Nick Sharratt and Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq.

School Link, is a web-based key stage 2 resource that uses the real life of children living in both Pakistan and China as the focus for the learning, gives pupils the chance to explore the everyday lives of similar aged children, helping them to discover what it's like to be a child in another country. Included on the website are stories, interactive games, facts and photographs from the countries.

There are also free resources including downloadable lesson plans and creative methods for teaching upper primary curriculum subjects such as Citizenship & PSHE, Geography, ICT and Literacy once you have signed up.

Link: http://www.school-link.org.uk/