Curriculum Blog

New Home Learning With ReadingZone Live and just2easy Toolsuite

Written by Bradley Dardis | Apr 16, 2020 1:57:22 PM

We have heard from both teachers and parents that they want more ideas to support home learning, the Inspire Team have been busy over the Easter Holidays and we have come with new ways to help the LGfL Community get the most out of our Home Learning resources which can be found at HLresources.lgfl.net.

ReadingZone Home Learning is the first in a range of new resources aimed at supporting home learning by giving educational and fun activities that children at home can complete.

The aim of ReadingZone Live Home Learning is simple, creating engaging learning activities powered by the fantastic video interviews made by the Reading Zone Live team, each weekly set of slides will have 5 videos linked to 5 tasks for your students to complete the resources are non-Key Stage specification and with support (if needed) can be completed by any primary school student.

The slides are made in the fantastic Just2Easy Toolsuite tool j2whiteboard for more details on j2whiteboard watch this quick video:

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ReadingZone Live is a development of the existing partnership between LGfL and www.Readingzone.com and brings regular interviews and live video conferences with some of the best contemporary children’s authors to London schools.

Anthony Horowitz, Henry Winkler, Sophie McKenzie, Michael Morpurgo, Julian Clary, Sally Nichols and Lauren Child are among the authors who have already joined us for the ReadingZone Live programme, which is helping inspire young people to explore new authors and genres and to develop their own creative writing.

We now have four ReadingZone Live Home Learning projects ready to go, each project focuses on an individual author/illustrator and provides 5 activities that link to the author’s interview, each task has a video interview (staring the author) as well as a task video (staring me) and also has an example of work to show what the end product could look like, there is no order to do these projects but each project has 5 activities so you should do one each day.

Our first projects focus on Oliver Jeffers, Henery Winker, Alex T Smith and Lauren Child.

You won’t need to login to j2e to access the slides as they are published and public-facing and are accessible on all devices from PCs to tablets to phones (but you may need to resize the slides using the scale selector at the bottom left).

After our first example project with Oliver Jeffers we have listened to feedback and now have updated the slides so that instead of audio guidance/support, it has video support.

Below is a list of our ReadingZone Home Learning projects and activities, just click on the title to access and share the slides.

Oliver Jeffers Home Learning Project (Click on this link to access the project)

  • Task 1: Simplify a story in the least amount of pictures/symbols/emojis that you can.
  • Task 2: Create a story from an illustration
  • Task 3: Remix a storybook by changing the text or illustrations.
  • Task 4: Explore the 7 genres of storytelling and see if you can think of an example for each genre.
  • Task 5: Write a letter explaining a concept/object to an alien.

Lauren Child Home Learning Project (Click on this link to access the project)

  • Task 1: Can you create an illustration for a book you already own or know take a piece of text and illustrate it?
  • Task 2: 12 Page challenge can you tell a story using only 12 pages with only 5 words per page.
  • Task 3: Can you make your own alphabet code using objects from around your house?
  • Task 4: Can you go on a book Scavenger hunt?
  • Task 5: Can you redraw a story but in an abstract why, give it to someone else can they understand the story?

Henry Winkler Home Learning Project (Click on this link to access the project)

  • Task 1: Can you act a story for someone?
  • Task 2: Can write a story about overcoming a learning challenge.
  • Task 3: Writing challenge every day take just 5 minutes to write a story.
  • Task 4: Design your own book cover and blurb
  • Task 5: Can design a poster showcasing how great you are?

Alex T Smith Home Learning Project(Click on this link to access the project)

  • Task 1: Draw something in the style of an illustrator you admire.
  • Task 2: Make a drawing diary so, draw a picture of an object every day for a week.
  • Task 3: Read a scene from a book paint or draw how the scene makes you feel.
  • Task 4: Think of an everyday activity how could you make it exciting or make up silly problems and write a story!
  • Task 5: Can you give an inanimate object personality?

And remember in support of continuing meaningful educational activities, LGfL has given open access to the majority of LGfL Learning Resources (no login is required) for members of the LGfL community to support schools during the school closures relating to the Coronavirus. LGfL content partners have kindly agreed to suspend the normal LGfL access control to facilitate teacher and pupil access when working from home.

The Inspire Team have gone through all of the curriculum resources at curriculum.lgfl.net and curated resources suitable for home learning, You can find them by using the new home learning filter or by using this quick link: hlresources.lgfl.net

Please note that the access control will change but the licence terms will not.

Further details of licence conditions can be found in the individual summary page for each resource found at hlresources.lgfl.net

We would love to hear your thoughts on our new resource and what you would like us to make next to support Home Learning and also how we can support you and your students just contact the Inspire Team by emailing contentsupport@lgfl.net or contact the LGfL Switchboard: 020 82 555 555.