Phonics videos my a UK year 1 teacher

There are over 200 free YouTube hosted videos from Mr Thorne, a year 1 primary school teacher in the UK, that can help parents with English, reading, spelling, and early literacy for their children. The videos should be engaging enough to hold the attention of four, five and six year olds.

Myths and legends of Britain

This is an interesting storytelling site full of old legends and myths from around the British Isles.

On top of this you can create your own stories using the online creator. It’s pretty intuitive to use.

You can view stories created by others via the creator.

Smories – Children’s stories read by children

What is Smories? Well put simply it’s a brilliant idea. Lots of young children love having stories read to them. They also like having stories read to them by other children; you might have seen siblings reading to one another, or making up stories for each other. Well that is the basis for Smories – video recordings of children reading stories.

If you’ve got a story for children you can submit it and if its good then one of the many narrators is filmed reading it. Simple as that.

If you’ve got kids then point them towards the site and let them go.

The idea for the site came from a couple with children on a long, long car journey. That’s why the site is also accessible from iPhones and the iPod Touch, so you can get a story where ever and whenever you (or more significantly your kids) want to. It would be nice to see if integration and access is as easy from other portable devices, I haven’t checked that yet.

But with a constant stream of new material, they’re aiming for 50 new stories a month, Smories is a place to keep returning to again and again.

Smories is a UK site a month in so currently all narrators are british with UK accents. The intention is to have more US narrators from August.

Cute Cartoon Creation Script

This is a bit of fun for the kids, two cartoon characters talking the script you input. It’s called Cute Cartoon Creation.

Choose your language, select a couple of characters, a locations backdrop and then write what you want your characters to say. Then away they go. It’s fun.

Memory Squid Game

If you want to exercise your memory then this Memory Squid Game will give it a bit of a workout.

You’re given a sequence of words and have to click on them in the televisions. Get one wrong and a bunny gets zapped. Get all of the words to move on to the next level.

Gamequarium

The Gamequarium is a site that “swims with learning fun”. Drill down the categories to find LOTS of resources for children to use for learning, either independently or supported. I can see myself returning to this site again and again.

International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL)

The International Children’s Digital Library is all about making children’s literature available in different languages. Quoting from their website:

The ICDL Foundation’s goal is to build a collection of books that represents outstanding historical and contemporary books from throughout the world.  Ultimately, the Foundation aspires to have every culture and language represented so that every child can know and appreciate the riches of children’s literature from the world community.

But put simply you can freely access online some great children’s books.

Alphablocks – early literacy games

The games on CBeebies Alphablocks (from the BBC) can help with early stage literacy, as the child forms words using the available letters or watches the songs letters sing.

Create Comicstrips online

I came across a video today that got me interested in creating comics online, and how it can be used to interest children in literacy.

I’ll mention a couple of sites that provide the facility, though there are several others.

I’ve picked on Bitstrips

and Pixton (click below to view video)

because they have on open version, but also a (pay for) secure school version that can be used within classrooms; Bitstrips for Schools

and Pixton fo Schools.

Both are quite intuitive to get started with, if after a bit of playing around. There’s lots of control over the characters, both body and facial expressions, and you can design your own.

In addition there’s a collaborative element to many of these services, where for example you are able to mix and remix the comics.

Pixton has a very nice Safety Tips section, helping to ensure that the site is safe for children’s uses, with parent supervision.

And here is the video of how Bitstrips is used in class and what children think about its use:

Storybird – create books or read others

Storybirds are short books you can create online using the beautiful illustrations that are available from a collection of illustrators. You also have access to storybirds others have created on the site. The books are nice and simply designed, giving then a very pleasing appearance.

There are a number of things you can do with storybird. Create books to read to your children, create stories to give your children reading practise if they are learning to read, or what about tapping into their imagination and helping them to create their own books.

There is a useful introductory video about Storybird available.