Ashford Rural Blog

BBC Breathing Places - "MAKE A PLACE FOR NATURE" at Canterbury Environment Education Centre

On Sunday 4^th June Canterbury Environmental Education Centre will be holding a unique family day to take action for the environment. ‘Make a Place for Nature’ is one of 19 flagship events around the UK to kick start the BBC Breathing Places project and marks the return of Springwatch to BBC2. BBC Breathing Places aims to mobilise a million people over the next 3 years to transform our landscape create breathing spaces for people and wildlife.

Canterbury Environmental Education Centre, run in partnership with Kent County Council and National Grid, is hosting the event free of charge to all. The day will give people of all ages and abilities a chance to try out a range of environmental activities to learn new skills and get involved in volunteering. A number of guided walks will give visitors a behind the scenes look at the nature reserve and develop wildlife monitoring skills. Practical conservation tasks will be a hands on chance to learn how to improve a space for wildlife.  Those with a creative interest can have a go at environmental art, and much, much more around the reserve.  Whether it be an insect shelter made on the day or simply a new way of thinking, all visitors will learn something special to take home.

The event continues the centre’s successful summer season of public events and should prove to be the most popular yet with large numbers of people expected, so book early to avoid disappointment! 

The centre offers delicious locally grown organic food, free parking, a picnic site, toilets, information centre and gift shop. ‘Make a Place for Nature’ at Canterbury Environmental Education Centre, Broad Oak Rd, June 4^th, 9-4pm, free. Site is not suitable for wheelchairs. No dogs. To book your exclusive free tickets call 08458 247 600.

ALERT ME - Let the 'New Items' and any changes come to you.

Many of you are starting to add to the Learning Platform ARC collaboration of content;

• Anne-Marie has contributed some great quality 'Assembly' PowerPoints.
• Bruce has added excellent 'Assessment' resouces to help us out.
• Lindsay shared a wonderful WWII interactive PowerPoint.
• Gill is collating a set of resources now Hamstreet have just got their live login accounts.
• Creative Curriculum covering core and foundation subjects is in the History/Tudor folder.
• Contents Factory generated 57o URL resources across Literacy, Numeracy & Science

To get a taste of these delectable morsels I recommend next time you are in on the Learning Platform click the Alert Me link, on the main Documents page to take you straight there to set up your requirements.

N.B/ Don't forget to check the first section: Send Alerts to  = type your email address.  I suggest the Change Type = 'Added Items' and the Alert Frequency as 'Weekly Summary'.

Otherwise you'll get my constent updates!!

Creative Curriculum on the Learning Platform = Tudors theme

I've had such positive feedback from teachers about how they are using the resource links in the ARC Interest Group's Documents tab.

When I've been out visiting, many of you have said how more schools are following the 'Creative Curriculum' method; teaching a range of subjects as part of a theme.  So armed with this knowledge I have added another set of resources, mainly Word documents and the now familiar URL resource link pages incorporating this method.

I chose History / Tudors as my theme, aimed at year 4, which can be easily extended for year 5 or adapted for year 3, just click on the ARC Cluster's 'Documents Tab' and enter the History folder.

• Literacy         -   Newspapers; formal language reporting the end of marriage to Henry VIII? Check out the Research sub folder to find printable information sheets on the Six Wives of Henry VIII.
• Numeracy      -   Graphs & Databases; Tally charts & graphs to show the duration of marriage to Henry VIII. Example record cards to create a Database to explore Search & Sort or an example to create a Branching Database to organise questions that provide Y / N answers.
• Science         -   Food; Balanced diet. Teeth; health how did the Tudor's diet and hygiene effect their teeth. Earth & Beyond; explore Light to learn the moon cycle or how many days in a year.  Don't forget to take the quiz!
• Art               -   Portraits; Tudor portrait style use the bank of resource ideas to create your own portrait following the Tudor style - pastel anyone?  Inside the Portraits folder is a sub folder called 'Six Wives' which has at least three images per wife.

There is so much more inside the Tudor folder, but you'll have to visit to see.  While you are there it's just another click of a couple of links to Edit/Add your own resources, to keep the collaboration alive!

I've heard one or two people say "It's a lot of clicking to manoeuvre around the Learning Platform".  Nothing could be further from the truth; each individual page on the Learning Platform can be saved into your 'Internet Favourites' section - ready for a single click next time you want to visit the History folder.  If you 'Organise' your Favourites by creating a central Learning Platform folder to store them in, they're even quicker to find later!

Please leave a comment in the 'Discussions' area to let me know what you think or if you have any ideas and tips.  Thank you!!