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These notes will help you to get the best
results out of the Info Trail companion
website in your classroom. They include activity
suggestions and ICT links.
ICT Links:
Access information
in different ways. Find ways of navigating
through menus to locate required section.
Quizzes
In this section pupils have a choice of three
quizzes, one each for the science, history and
geography themes. The questions cover titles from
both Beginner and Emergent stages so they can
be used when pupils have completed reading the
KS1 books, or alternatively could be divided up
for each level to be used separately.
They can be used as a straightforward fun quiz
- How many can you get right? - or pupils could
be encouraged to use the contents pages to find
the answers, or to check their first attempts.
Why not introduce a type of 'Who Wants To Be a
Millionaire?' fun element into it by doubling
points for each question that they get right?
ICT Links:
There are different ways of presenting questions,
and different ways of answering them.
Info Extra!
Here children will find a number of Fact Files
to complement titles in both Beginner and Emergent
Stages. These Fact Files are based on specific
details taken from the content of a book, delving
deeper into the subject matter and providing a
new range of information, e.g. the book Would
You be a Bee? Introduces the fact that bees
have five eyes; Info Extra! takes this fact one
step further giving more information about bees'
eyes and the eyes of other animals.
They can be used as extension reading material
for pupils to access independently, or as part
of a structured ICT literacy task.
Teaching Ideas
- Give pupils a printout of a fact file with
some details blanked out (e.g. the countries
in What Shall We Have for Tea Tonight?). Let
children research the file to fill the spaces.
You could have the facts on individual cards,
and the countries on others - let children match
them up! Make it harder - blank out both countries
and food!
- Focus children's reading by giving them a
question to answer from a Fact File.
- Can children locate countries or places on
a simple map? (What Shall We Have for Tea Tonight?).
Print out the maps and ask children to label
and add drawings.
Download a map taken from What Shall We Have
for Tea Tonight?
Without
answers
With
answers
- Make extra cards for the results of the children's
'unusual food facts' research (What Shall We
Have for Tea Tonight?) - they can use them as
a game with a partner.
- Make a collection of colour spectrum mnemonics
(How to Read the Sky).
- Using the labelling activity sheets, select
labels to describe, e.g. a hummingbird (Tongues),
a bee (Would You Be a Bee?), a gecko (Feet).
Label the drawings. Children can use the activity
sheets to do a closed procedure activity on
bees, geckos or hummingbirds.
Download
Hummingbird Activity Sheets (PDF)
Download
Gecko Activity Sheets (PDF)
Download
Bee Activity Sheets (PDF)
- Match key words to describe various games
in Knucklebones.
- Make up a short story using one of the sayings
from the Toilets Through Time fact file.
ICT Links:
Labelling and classifying; use of key words
to describe objects. Text can be typed into
a computer, corrected and printed out.
How persuaded are you?
Here children are invited to vote on the issue
raised in Is Simba Happy in the Zoo? The
book presents both sides of the argument in a
balanced way, and pupils may feel swayed one way
or the other. Here's their chance to register
their opinion. An on-screen count will permanently
show the way the vote is going.
Teaching Note
Some children may feel disappointed that their
own opinion seems to be a minority view. In this
case you could revisit the arguments with them,
to help them understand why people might feel
differently. Why not try a class debate on the
issue? Maybe the results of an in-school poll
could be compared.
Practise their debating skills by staging further
debates: e.g. Were the Old Days the Best?
ICT Links:
Use mouse to register vote. Information such
as vote count can be recorded and conveyed.
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