Before Christmas, First Minister – Nicola Sturgeon – visited Castleview Primary School in Edinburgh to see how they are developing the Scottish Government’s Raising Attainment agenda.
Check out the video – showcasing how Castleview co-ordinate paired reading and family learning – below:
Want to introduce vocabulary to help learners flourish during the writing process? If so, check out The 500 Words Alphabot resource from the BBC by clicking the image below.
Click on Alphabot to churn out a random selection of words. Click on any of those words to get synonyms and antonyms for that word. A fabulous freebie!
Click on the image below to download a list of techniques that can be used when teaching learners how to describe, narrate, inform, persuade and analyse.
The table is taken from a guideline created by the Institute of Education Sciences, based on their four recommendations for developing effective writers:
1) Provide learners with the opportunity to write daily
2) Teach learners how to create a variety of genres
3) Teach sentence fluency, handwriting, spelling and keyboard skills
4) Create an engaged community of writers.
Click the image above for the full practice guide.
To top off a week of Scots Language themed resources, Education Scotland have produced a grid which houses links that can be used to support the teaching of Scots across the curriculum.
Click the image above to download the grid.
Continuing with this week’s theme of Scots Language . . .
Scuilwab is another great resource that can be used to support the teaching of Scots Language in schools. The Scottish version of ‘Pop Goes the Weasel‘ is worth a look.
Scuilwab – click on the image above.
Another resource to support the teaching of Scots in the classroom – Burns’ Night looming is the perfect stimulus.
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Jordan’s New Jaiket is a resource from Education Scotland to support the teaching of Scots. The author, Matthew Fitt, also administers the Scots Hoose website.
CLICK HERE – Jordan’s New Jaiket
CLICK HERE – Resources for Scots
Lisa Jane Ashes recently presented at the National Literacy Network in Dunblane as the keynote, presenting her work on embedding Literacy across Learning. She introduced the concept of Thought Bombs.
Thought Bombs – the resource is fairly simple; the plastic balls that you’d find in a child’s ball-pit, with a small hole cut out to make room for a slip of paper detailing a question, conversation starter or statement.
When posing learners a question, Thought Bombs can be used to sporadically add extra information to further guide or probe learners’ responses.
In this example, learners could be posed with the following question:
‘Our ship is sinking! Only one of us can survive . . . who would you pick?’
Learners would then discuss their opinions in small groups, justifying their responses based on the information that they know about each person.
After learners have been given a few minutes to discuss their thoughts, you could place Thought Bombs with their groups that provide more information or further questions, e.g.
– Marni is a convicted criminal and has spent time in a Young Offender Institution
– Robert has hunting skills that allow him to survive in the wild
– Roberta is an MI5 agent
– Marni is Roberta’s daughter
– Roberta is Robert’s daughter
– Robert does charity work at his local food bank
– What skills would Marni have to survive?
– What assets might Roberta have to help her live longer?
– How do you think Robert would survive?
– What crime do you think Marni convicted?
– Create a survival plan for your chosen survivor
– What has caused the ship to sink?
CLICK HERE to download the questions above to use in Thought Bombs.
The SSLN (Scottish Summary of Literacy and Numeracy) Professional Learning Resource includes a great resource – Lost – that could be used to facilitate the use of Thought Bombs.
When analysing a text, use Thought Bombs to discuss character, setting, plot and themes.
Thinking of using Thought Bombs to promote thinking and develop listening and talking skills in your classroom – leave us a comment to let us know how you plan to develop the resource?
The Film Education website is an excellent resource to use when teaching digital texts and delivering Media Literacy.
One of their resources is Teaching Trailers – a resource that includes lesson plans which supports the teaching of using film trailers as a mode of text.
Primary
CLICK HERE – Lesson Plans
CLICK HERE – Schemes of Work
Secondary
CLICK HERE – Trailers
CLICK HERE – Teachers’ Notes
HIGHLAND LITERACY 