In times like these, sharing teaching resources with each other is more important than ever! Below is a list of 10 useful (and FREE) online resources for teaching English, which may prove useful in the coming weeks during school closures. Please do feel free to share with teachers, colleagues and parents…

1) CLPE’s PoetryLine is an excellent resource. Their PoetryLine website holds an extensive bank of poems for children and teaching resources, videos of poet performances and interviews to support the teaching of poetry. Here’s an example of the Joseph Coelho page:

2) Pobble 365 is another brilliant online resource for English. Offering a new picture and teaching resource every day, usually consisting of questions around an image, story starters that allow children to continue the story, sentence challenges and illustration tasks.

3) Newsround is a safe place for children to access news and a useful non-fiction resource. The CBBC Shows section of the site also has useful links to shows such as Deadly 60 and Horrible Histories which they can watch through BBC iPlayer.

4) Michael Rosen’s website and Youtube Channel is a goldmine of imaginative, fun ideas and video clips linked to stories and poetry. It includes hundreds of videos ranging from How to Beat Box with SchloMo, Storymapping and 68 Rib-Tickling Jokes, to Poetry Mega-Bundles, Interviews and stories read aloud by Michael himself. This site is a real gem!

5) The Literacy Shed has a range of excellent short films to inspire writing and discussion. Whilst the sequences/lesson plans are paid-for on Literacy Shed Plus, there are a range of videos, which you can access for free, on the main website.

6) In addition, Literacy Shed Images provides a series of interesting images, illustrations and photographs to act as writing prompts. Some have questions and ideas for writing written alongside them too.

7) GetEpic.com is full of non-fiction, comics and loads of great reading material! It’s free for educators to sign up and they are currently offering free remote student access during schools closures. You’ll be able to assign books and monitor class progress as students use Epic to learn from home.

8) BBC Bitesize has useful English resources for all key stages, including: BBC Bitesize KS1 stories, BBC Bitesize KS2 creative writing and BBC Bitesize KS3 creative and narrative writing with a series of explanatory videos and related tasks or online interactive quizzes that test students’ understanding of different skills and features.

 

 

9) Once upon a Picture is another fantastic stimulus website, including plenty of pictoral inspiration for your young writers! Each image comes with a raft of questions to ponder and, usually, a related writing task too.

10) Lit Film Fest has a range of free projects that teachers can access for Key Stages 1-4. A quick sign up process gives you access to planning for 5 free projects.

You may also be interested in 20 online tools for teaching vocab and the various online grammar sites listed on my Getting to Grips with Grammar blog post.

The Literacy Leader has also just posted a brilliant blog full of useful resources and I fully agree with the sentiment – the fact that everyone coming together and sharing resources is a glimmer of hope amidst all this uncertainty (thank you for sharing too!).

Obviously, these resources are most helpful for households that have internet access. For those who don’t, some of these websites have PDF resources to help you prepare packs to send home. Most importantly, try to ensure that each child has access to books at home – perhaps prepare book bundles from the library for children to take home with them.

If you have any other useful literacy resources to share, please do add links in the comments section below…

 

Download this list of resources as a PDF here: Literacy with Miss P Home Learning Tools