Warwickshire Schools Library Service Supporting reading and learning in schools
September 2020

Our Digital Discoveries for June 2020

We recognise that there is a lot of information at the moment about useful links and resources, which can sometimes be a little overwhelming to try and sort through. So we have tried to put together some key links for teachers, pupils, librarians, parents and carers to use.
At WSLS we have been busy beavering away to bring you some useful resources:

Useful Resources for Learning at Home     Topic Card Tree
Our Summer Topic Cards for Subscribing Schools

Our Digital Discoveries for June:

  • Oxford Owl: Parents can create a free account to access eBooks including Oxford Reading Tree titles.
  • The Phoenix comic - These are great and you can view a selection of back copies using the link. You can create your own comics with the resources available from Seven Stories
  • BookLife Publishers are offering a selection of free online resources, including PDFs of non-fiction titles and activities.
  • World Book Day's World of stories offers a selection of audio books to listen to for free.
  • It is World Ocean Day on Monday 8th June. There will be an interactive line up of ocean advocates, live ocean films, science lessons, music performances, yoga, breath-work, storytelling and much more!
  • We will be Celebrating Empathy Day on Tuesday 9th June, there are a huge amount of excellent resources available for this very important day.
  • Pobble365: For any budding writers there are some lovely story starters here, with a new picture and teaching resources each day.
  • The Summer Reading Challenge will largely be delivered online this year, you can find out more information on their website, where we found a really lovely Book Sorter to help you find your next read!
  • The British Library are promoting content to help children discover children's books. They are encouraging children to send them their own miniature books and are asking children to share their homemade miniature books with its Twitter account @BL_Learning using the hashtag #DiscoveringChildrensBooks. They also have some fantastic resources to download here
  • The Guardian and the Unicorn theatre present a fun series of short performances, created in lockdown, for children aged three to eight. Anansi and the Two Dinners is available from 11am on 6 June until 8pm on 27 June 
  • The Writing for Pleasure Centre have produced a really lovely resource to support children writing at home.
  • With the wider opening of schools on 1st June, Widgit have produced a Back to School Toolkit of resources to help support signage, way finding and personal care around a socially distanced school environment.The toolkit also includes a set of well-being and mental health 
    resources to assist children returning to school after such a major disruption to their normal day-to-day lives.

Our Digital Discoveries for May: 

  • Hillstone Gardens in Warwick are working in collaboration with local storyteller Kate. Follow each week at 2pm for 12 weeks as Kate begins her journey of Hill Close Gardens through the story of Isabella. You can access the online event through Kate's Storytree page Kate also tells stories and shares content each day on her own storytelling page. Great for all ages groups, parents as well!
  • Wriggle at Home return with bitesize creative dance sessions for children ages 2-5 and their grown-ups and/or siblings.These new videos will be accessible with captions and some with Makaton signing.
  • Discover Motionhouse: Motionhouse have moved all of their content online for the time being, if you love dance have a look! They are offering this content until till the end of May and have over 30 online dance classes for a range of ages.
  • Daniel Radcliffe reads the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone: https://www.wizardingworld.com/chapters/reading-the-boy-who-lived with more content promised!
  • Generation Lockdown: A writing competition for young people aged from 7-17
  • The Book of Hopes: Edited by Katherine Rundell, this is a collection of short stories, poems, essays and pictures. There are contributions from more that 100 children's writers and illustrators and it is free!
  • Barrington Stoke have created a great resource with advice, information and free resources for parents and carers of children with dyslexia, but that will be useful for all types of readers.
  • The Undefeated: Watch Kwame Alexander read aloud from this wonderful and thought provoking book. 
  • Beanstalk have produced a create your own story dice, use these to create your own imaginative stories each day. 
  • ChatterPack: A list of free, online, boredom busting resources!
  • Oddsocks Stay Home Shakespeare: Friday 17th Mat at 7pm. Live acted, live edited, live streamed! 
  • Picture Book Party: This lovely blog from Walker Books offers lots of author chat and resources.
  • Puffin Schools: 'Ideas to Spark Imagination at Home' and it doesn't disappoint, amazing resources.
  • The Children's Poetry Archive: Poems to read and read aloud by authors, plus a good glossary.

Our Digital Discoveries for April: 

  • Warwickshire Public Libraries - Really useful home learning resources.
  • We particularly love the wide variety of eBooks and eAudio that are available and so easy to borrow!
  • Warwickshire Family and Information Service have a useful website and a newsletter that you can sign up to.
  • Newsguard - A free tool which will help to discern the reliability of information from a website you are visiting.
  • First News - Free downloads of this.
  • Premier League Primary Stars - Supportive curriculum-linked resources to educate and entertain children and keep them active, with no registration needed.
  • Audible - Currently offering a number of free children's titles to download for free with no subscription or sign up needed.
  • Family Zone - National Literacy Trust have created some lovely resources by age group on this part of their website.
  • National Shelf Service - Launched this week, virtual recommends of book titles from authors and librarians. 
  • Tiny Happy People - Tiny Happy People is here to help you develop your child's communication skills. Explore our simple activities and play ideas and find out about their amazing early development.
  • The Maths Factor - Created by Carol Vorderman, free at the moment to help support your child's learning at home.
  • Kate's Story Tree - Twice daily 'live' storytelling sessions.
  • Escape Arts - There are some lovely digital resources and programmes on offer here.
  • Book Club with Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery - This might be of particularly interest to older pupils and adults. The first books they are focusing on is Silas Marner.
  • STEM Learning have launched their free home learning support for children aged 4-19. Watch a video from Tim Peake!
  • Heritage and Culture Warwickshire are advertising a  loans box that you can borrow from them and quite literally hold history in your hands! Designed to supplement and support your learning activities and currently free. 

Please do let us know if you have any useful links you might like to share with us or that we can promote. We are also keen to continue to help you with any book related questions or queries to help you keep reading over the coming months.
You can get in touch with us here: schoolslibraryservice@warwickshire.gov.uk