Teaching ScienceIdeas and help for trainee Science teachers

You are probably already aware of the problems with Sparklebox following the imprisonment of its creator

Here are three websites that are filling the gap left by Sparklebox – all of them provide free printable worksheets and display materials that teachers might find useful.

Twinkl : This is a brand new online resource centre created just for teachers. Resources for Literacy and Numeracy are already online, I’m hoping they’ll start to cover Science and other subjects to follow soon.

Primary School Teaching : Primary School Teaching is a platform for sharing and ranking teaching resources and ideas. Lots of subjects covered and a useful search facility.

Teachers Pet : Another new website with a growing bank of PDF resources to download. It was only launched this week – so give it time to grow. IWB resources are on their way apparently.

Get ready for Great Plant Hunt Week 17 – 22 May 2010! This is a great way of getting your students participating in real scientific research. Take part in this special thinking walk activity between the 17th and 22nd May, looking for 10 easy to spot plants and simply take a photo of the ones that you find in flower!

With schools across the UK uploading these photos to a map on the website, you can look at how the flowering in this small snapshot of time may differ geographically – maybe look to see if the dandelions are flowering in your neighbouring school? You can also compare this year’s data to last, click here to see the results from the same week last year, do you think there might be different results this year?

Visit the Great Plant Hunt Week website to find out more: http://www.greatplanthunt.org/gphweek

New Resources for Foundation Stage

The Great Plant Hunt website has added to its range of primary school activities and has released a set of new activities for 3-5 year olds.

Now freely available for download from the website, along with supporting materials, these three activities will get your foundation classes out exploring the natural world, getting creative and preparing for a colour themed party! As always the activities enjoy close links to the curriculum in areas such as observation, colour, counting, sorting and creative development.

Find out more about these brand new resources and get your class plant hunting – you’re never too young to learn from the great outdoors!

Resources for all other key stages, and also teachers guides, can be found on the main site: http://www.greatplanthunt.org

Get ready for Great Plant Hunt Week 17 – 22 May 2010 The Great Plant Hunt Week Phenology Activity is a great way of getting your students participating in real scientific research. Take part in this special thinking walk activity between the 17th and 22nd May, looking for 10 easy to spot plants and simply take a photo of the ones that you find in flower! With schools across the UK uploading these photos to a map on the website, you can look at how the flowering in this small snapshot of time may differ geographically – are the dandelions flowering in your neighbouring school?

How about on the other side of the UK? You can also compare this year’s data to last, click here to see the results from the same week last year, do you think there might be different results this year?

Want to build your own model solar system? Here’s a handy guide to work it all out to the correct scale. Simply put in the size of the Sun and the website will give you all the sizes and distances of the planets.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/solar_system/

And while we’re on the subject, here’s a great video that shows the sheer size of the solar system:

And another which shows just how small our Sun really is, when compared to other stars.