The Quest Books

The programme relies quite heavily on a selection of specific books. All of them are still available but you may need to check changes in page numbers.

You can find  all the Quest Books here on the Better Reading Partners Amazon Book Shop Quest page

The Dilly the Dinosaur books have new ISBNs:
Dilly the Dinosaur 978749746827
Dilly and the Goody Goody 07801405202497

The Shark book is also available but has different page numbers and some missing information.

I have also added the Volcano book which is still available as a pack of 6 or as individual books.

Devon pdp has some good links to all the basics now that the original site is gone. The handbooks are there as PDF files but the advice to be cautious about printing them out is good. They are each over 60 full colour pages! Well worth downloading though and saving somewhere, maybe to a CD or pen drive?

Leicester still has the editable version of the parents leaflet which I found very useful to send out at the start of the scheme.

Introducing The Tidy Classroom Workbook

This short, practical guide will take you through the process and help you to make  little changes that can make a huge difference. This is a workbook and it will only help if you print it out and work through the process. Done properly this is a short but powerful way to make some immediate changes for the better in  your classroom.

Buy it now for only £2.75

Have you really looked around your room recently?

Is your classroom is crammed with work in progress and things you’ve not had time to clear away?  Or is it well organised but uninspiring? A messy classroom or a boring one can soon make you, and your learners, feel overwhelmed and exhausted.

Not Just Your Display Boards

This is not about your classroom displays  but about the whole visual look of your classroom.  A working space can have a big impact not only on  efficiency but also how easy it is to concentrate. You could have the most wonderful, creative display boards in your classroom but their effectiveness may be reduced by the visual clutter surrounding them.

Not Creative Mess But Visual Noise

I’m not talking about a ‘creative mess’. Classrooms that are always tidy with nothing out of place are rather dead spaces. Learning is inherently messy!  When creative work is underway every classroom gets a bit untidy and that’s a good thing!  Creative mess can be cleared away quickly once the creative moment has passed. The trouble starts when it is left to turn into the sort of distracting mess that adds to a general ‘visual noise’. That mess that you can see out of the corner of your eye makes concentration very difficult.

Visual Distraction Is Bad for Everyone

We all know intuitively that it can be hard to think clearly in a very messy space. This applies to you,  just as much as it does to your learners.  It is even worse for any students in your class who suffer with attention issues, dyslexia or autistic spectrum disorders.

Imagine Being A Child In Your Classroom

We will start by  imagining what it is like to be a student rather than a teacher in your room.  Once you have taken a look at your classroom through fresh eyes you will find it much easier to see what needs to be done.

You Will  See Exactly What Needs to Be Done and How to Do it Quickly.

I’ll show you how you can use your natural visual strengths to quickly create a more effective classroom.  Once you know how to really look at your classroom you will find that there are quick and easy solutions staring you in the face.

In 3 steps this workbook will help you to

Step 1: Identify what blocks your students and makes your classroom hard to work in.

Step 2: Create actions to instantly improve things.

Step 3: Make long term changes to your classroom to more effectively support your students’ learning.

The Tidy Classroom Workbook is a short, practical, PDF and is ideal for anyone who feels their classroom space is looking a little (or a lot!) unloved and wants to fix it, fast! 

Buy it now for only £2.75

The ‘No-Risk’ Bottom Line

This workbook will cost you little more than the price of a large coffee (£2.75) and if you honestly try out the process and if it doesn’t work for you just let me know and I’ll refund you in full.

Buy it now for only £2.75

2012 is the Year of the Dragon so I thought we’d concentrate on dragons for these displays. The New Year falls early this year (Monday, 23 January 2012) so you haven’t much time. Any of these ideas from the Classroom Displays Flickr Group will give a good result in quite a short time.

First up comes this dragon mask from Avon Grove Charter School.This gives an impressive effect that  is fairly easy to achieve. The main part of the dragon is just assembled from construction paper. Children could be encouraged to research and design their own version. There are ready-made patterns for dragon masks available but this is so simple I think it could be a good opportunity for some interaction and creative input. Once you have the main mask done it is a simple matter to add some red streamers and there you are, one dragon to add to a display.

Next even more dragons from Dogboneart. This time children have made individual dragons using just a concertina folded piece of A3 and some folded streamers. These are fun and if you wanted to make them look a little more appropriate for New Year I would suggest limiting the colour palette to dark red and yellow. Some gold metallic paper or sequin waste would also work well. If I had enough space I might be tempted to put these on a black background with red borders.

Thirdly we have more dragons from Aolife (poppiesandlilies), this time a little more formal. The children have coloured in a template dragon head and then added a concertina folded body made from construction paper. I like the choice of red backing paper here though I might have added some black areas to provide some more contrast.

Chinese New Year Display Resources and Activities

Key colours to work with for Chinese New Year are red, black and gold. This can be tricky if the whole school is competing for scarce display materials and resources so you might have to get creative.Much of your red and black paper might have been used at either Halloween or Christmas so you might be a little limited. Making use of red card and black and gold marker pens can be one way round it. Also consider using a yellow or orange border for either a black or red board. Of course if you have already got a board that was backed in red then sprucing it up with new borders and labels might be all that is needed. Chinese New Year displays are quite short-lived and will need to come down at half term so keeping it simple and recycling where possible is probably a good idea.

Teacher’s Pet have really gone to town on these this year with some fantastic Chinese New Year display resources. In the role play section they have everything you need to set up a Chinese Take-away. There are also banners and other items for Chinese New Year displays. As usual their display resources are free, though they do ask for a donation. Some of the activities are on their members site and that does cost to join, though it is very reasonable for such high quality resources.

This  great tutorial with step by step instruction for helping children to draw a Chinese dragon can be found on Miss Julie’s Art School blog

If you have some coloured plastic cups that you don’t need then this tutorial from Jellyish Jelly might be just what you need. You can do something similar with cut up painted egg boxes if you want a smaller dragon.

Finally Early Learning HQ has a lovely multi-language Happy New Year display banner  (great if you have plenty of red and yellow ink for printing it out!) and lots of other ideas and activities.

Have I missed anyone’s favourites? Do let me know in the comments section.

Just a few quick ideas for last minute Halloween displays

I’ve had several secondary people on the Classroom Displays course this year and there is a growing feeling that displays are becoming more important in high schools. That all set me thinking about just what’s available in the way of displays advice for teachers of older classes.

Useful Display Books for Secondary Teachers

Here are some links to articles I’ve written about books that might be helpful . The first one is aimed at secondary teachers:

Design for Learning
The next 2 are aimed at primary but the information about the basics of design holds true whatever the age range. These both have long extracts that are available to read here on the blog:
Interactive Projects
and
Bulletin Boards That Capture Them with Pizzazz
The displays they describe are mostly relevant to primary but the last one has a good chapter on basic design.
Finally there is an excellent free pdf from Dr David Smawfield’s site.Look at the  School and Classroom Display Handbook. This gives a really clear set of basic display guidelines to follow what ever the age of the learners.

Useful Sites with Free Display Resources for Secondary Teachers

On my travels round the internet preparing this post I found some very useful sites with free (mostly) science related posters suitable for older students. Some were  to download, others could be ordered in the UK.

1. Secondary maths posters, postcards and more from mathscareers.org.uk.I love the Maths on the Underground series and the Origami posters

2. Chemistry Resources from the RSC -Discover Chemistry 8 free Careers Posters

3. Tomorrows Engineers site has some great stuff. My own favourite is the large What is Engineering? poster. It  is really detailed and would be great blown up into a really huge image using Blockposter. (Blockposter tutorial post)

Have you found any great books or resources for secondary science displays?