Blogs related to primary school subjects, teaching, learning, and more. Written by recognised author-educators and experienced staff. Each blog is tagged for easy filtering.
The end of the year is upon us and what a year it has been. We wanted to say thank you for all your support and share with you the highlights of our year and the top 22 teacher resources of 2022, as decided by you!
SOLO Hexagons is an effective systems thinking strategy to support and advance student thinking about complex subjects, from a surface level understanding to a more conceptual level.
We’ve just released The Essential Planner 2023, one of the most loved teaching planners for junior to senior primary school teachers. It is the perfect teacher planner to organise your teaching year.
The transition from early childhood (ECE) to primary school impacts children and their family. Communication and pedagogical awareness are crucial elements for transition.
Leaning on his time as a teacher, Paul Mason, highly published children’s writer, reflects on how he puts the child at the heart of what he writes – wanting children to see themselves in his stories.
Learning science in school is a great way to develop students’ critical and creative thinking skills while engaging them in activities.
Students with dyslexia struggle to learn to read and spell. Compared with their peers (of the same intelligence, age or year level), dyslexic students progress at a slower rate and participating in reading, spelling and writing activities involves much more effort for them.
Last article in a four part series from Pam Hook, explores how SOLO Taxonomy and Hexagons can shift students’ understanding to a conceptual or SOLO extended abstract level.
Most classes include at least a couple of struggling readers, but how can teachers offer support to improve their literacy skills?
In the third part of the series, Pam Hook explores how SOLO Hexagons can support students to move to a deeper level of understanding – the SOLO relational level – in relation to climate change.
Why is climate change important to young people’s learning? In Years 7–11, students are already experiencing rapid physical, emotional and social changes in their own lives. As they see it, climate change may be just one more disaster that no one can do anything about.
Second of a four-part series by Pam Hook on SOLO Hexagons and SOLO Taxonomy – a fusion and powerful strategy for teaching systems thinking.
Pam Hook presents the first of a four-part series on SOLO Hexagons – a fusion of SOLO Taxonomy and hexagonal thinking as a powerful strategy for teaching systems thinking.
Sometimes students (teachers and parents!) need a break from content-heavy lessons. Here are three easy ideas for learning maths at home – all you need is a deck of cards!
Author, Jill Eggleton, on how reading aloud to children helps to naturally create meaning and a better understanding of how language works – including making sense from print.
An interview with Tania Withers, Head of ESOL at St Joseph’s Catholic School in Wellington, about Essential Resources’ popular literacy resources, Story Seekers.
Angie Simmons writes about awesome online science tools for learning at home. She offers tips and tricks in the blogs series to make learning at home the best it can be.
Author, Angie Simmons, writes about awesome ideas for learning at home. She offers tips and tricks in the blogs series to make being at home situation the best it can be.
Angie Simmons writes about ways in which parents can help their children learn coding and technology. She also provides ideas that are not online learning.
Author, Angie Simmons, explains how creating digital stories leads towards problem solving and technology integration which seamlessly weaves together the pedagogy.
Author and poet, Vaughan Rapatahana, answers questions around the importance of poetry and how to understand and develop an appreciation for it.
Writing Success for Boys author, Frances Adlam, discusses how creating rhythm can provide a clear pathway for building success in writing for all children.
Poet and author, Vaughan Rapatahana, writes about how teachers can get students more engaged in poetry. Poetry should be made more prevalent and therefore more relevant.
Pam Hook and Willem Tolhoek’s latest SOLO Taxonomy book presents simple experiments to guide science students as they investigate, observe, gather and interpret data.
Sonya Van Schaijik explains how she uses SOLO Taxonomy to create balance in learning a second language and how important that is for success in the classroom.
Marie Langley’s top tips for captivating students with practical literacy activities that build cross-curricular skills and strengthen their ability to think for themselves.
Dive into the different strategies and activities Peggy Bruce uses in her classroom to keep young students active, engaged, and motivated, while learning (Part 2)
Dive into the different activities Peggy Bruce uses in her classroom to keep young students active, engaged, and motivated, while learning (Part 1) in her latest blog.
Author Kate Lloyd answers questions about her teaching background, the Bring Spelling Alive Series and what it is like living in Vanuatu. Read through her interview.
Donna-Marie Wardle answers some questions about her teaching and what motivates her to focus on behaviour management – supporting both students and teachers.
Passion Learning seeks to uncover students’ personal interests, their hobbies and their dreams and allows them to develop learning projects around them.
Why wouldn’t you use the Arts to explore and teach poetry to children? Read through Frances Adlam’s top tips and tricks on how you can use the Arts for poetry in your class.
Pam Hook writes about her experience at the West Coast Principals’ Conference at Franz Josef in 2011. She dives into her adventures and the interesting things she learnt.
Best practice teaching revolves around multi-sensory learning, teacher knowledge, intelligences, and more. Explore what multi-sensory learning is with Frances Adlam.