Category: Curricular Areas

Author of the Week: Sally Gardner from the National Literacy Trust

Mr Tiger, Betsy and the Blue MoonRead and listen for free Sally Gardner’s Mr Tiger, Betsy and the Blue Moon, illustrated by Nick Maland. An enchanting story by a much loved author about Betsy K Glory, the daughter of a mermaid and an ice-cream maker, who meets the mysterious Mr Tiger and they have a giant challenge: a moon to turn blue, berries to collect and wishable-delicious ice cream to create. The sort that makes wishes come true.

You can also watch an exclusive video with Sally to hear all about her The Tindims of Rubbish Island stories, discover Sally’s top three children’s books and enjoy Questions & Answers to find out more about Sally.

Read, listen and enjoy here

 

The Book of Hopes

Scrapbook of Hopes banner2

The Learning Resource Service promoted The Book of Hopes when it was published last year, it is a wonderful book to comfort and inspire children. Edited by the well known and loved author Katherine Rundell, it contains contributions from more than 100 writers and illustrators, including Lauren Child, Anthony Horowitz, Greg James and Chris Smith, Michael Morpurgo, Liz Pichon, Axel Scheffler, Francesca Simon and Jacqueline Wilson. The publisher, Bloomsbury, have kindly made the on-line book available free during this lockdown.

There are some brilliant activities and ideas that have been produced based on the Book of Hopes as well as a challenge to spread hope, inspiration and a love of reading in your school and local community with a chance to win prizes!

Great Picture Books read by the people who created them!

Illustration from Grandad's Island by Benji DaviesFrom Grandad’s Island by Benji Davies

Click here for video resources for 11 author/illustrators, freely available on the CLPE YouTube channel and enjoy listening to 11 picture books read aloud by the authors/illustrators.

An amazing resource perfect for lockdown for parents and children to listen to.

Enjoy!

Benji Davies shows how to draw grandad from Grandad’s Island.

Also you will find some fantastic illustrators here showing how they create their characters, brilliant to draw along to.

Free primary teaching materials and resources from the

Power of Pictures project

The Power of Pictures helps primary school teachers to develop their understanding of the craft of picture book creation and illustration as a way of raising children’s reading and writing. Enjoy using the specially developed free teaching resources for all age groups.

RSE School Talks Programme

RSE Schools

The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) have announced a free School Talks programme where a number of their Fellows will be delivering free online talks to schools throughout Scotland.

All talks are presented by inspirational experts, keen to enthuse and excite young people in P6 – S6 covering Sciences; Technologies; Social Studies; Health and Wellbeing; Expressive Arts; Mathematics; and Languages. They look AMAZING! Many of the speakers are also willing to work with teachers to tailor their talks to fit with class curriculums.

For more information about the talks and how to book please visit https://www.rse.org.uk/schools/school-talks/

 

Free e-Books from Oxford University Press

A colourful free e-Book helping to talk through feelings around covid 19 with young children. Available from Oxford University Press here

Winnie and Wilbur Stay at Home from the popular series by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul is available as an e-Book with fun activities and can be downloaded free here

Winnie and Wilbur Stay at Home jacket image

 

Mantra Lingua offers free access to E-books

 

Great news! Mantra Lingua is a UK based publisher of award winning multilingual education resources and is offering free access to ebooks for home reading. Their ebooks come in 37 languages and you can enjoy the books free until 31st August 2020.

Click here to sign up and start reading.

The RED Book Award ceremony goes digital!

The RED Book Award, now in its 14th year, was in danger of not going ahead because of the coronavirus, however it was decided to organise the ceremony on-line. Over 70 teachers and pupils gathered on Microsoft Teams on 27/5/2020 to join the 4 wonderful shortlisted authors:

Lauren James who wrote The Quiet at the End of the World

Matt Killeen who wrote Orphan Monster Spy

Gill Lewis who wrote The Closest Thing to Flying

Fiona Shaw who wrote Outwalkers

The Q & A session was excellent with the authors answering brilliant questions from the pupils. The ceremony was interrupted with some occasional ‘hand dancing’ by the librarians, teachers, guests and authors! The young people had written alternative endings to the shortlisted books and the overall winner, from Larbert HS, had written another ending to The Closest Thing to Flying, the author, Gill Lewis, said she was “blown away” by the writing.

And then it was time to open the red envelope to reveal the winning book:

The Quiet at the End of the World by Lauren James who was delighted and said it was her first regional book award win!

Congratulations Lauren.

The Quiet at the End of the World

The Book of Hopes

BookofHopes.jpg

Award-winning children’s author, Katherine Rundell, has launched The Book of Hopes: Words and Pictures to Comfort, Inspire and Entertain Children in Lockdown, which is hosted exclusively on the National Literacy Trust’s Family Zone.

Completely free for all children and families, the extraordinary collection of short stories, poems, essays and pictures has contributions from more than 110 children’s writers and illustrators.

Publishers give permission to read their books on-line

At this time you may wish to read stories online as one of the many ways to digitally engage children and young people. Many publishers understand this, and have temporarily lifted or adjusted their copyright guidelines and permissions, please visit this website to find out which publishers have adjusted their policies. You will also find guidelines to follow from each participating publisher.

Don’t forget that many others are offering free resources and tools on their websites.

First Minister’s Reading Challenge

An open book with letters coming out of it

Due to the school closures, the deadline for sending submissions to the First Minister’s Reading Challenge has been extended to the 14th May 2020.

Your evidence of nurturing a love of reading can be in the form of a piece of writing, or a film, photo diary, presentation or mind map. It may not be what you had intended due to the lockdown, but Scottish Book Trust are really keen to hear about your good work.

Scottish Book Trust is also running an online webinar on 21st April on how to submit your Challenge entry, more information can be found here.

GOOD LUCK!