Our distributer in the Netherlands, Heutink is hosting a seminar day at Apeldoorn for 600 teachers. Along side the seminars and talks, the Dutch teachers have the opportunity to attend an exhibition of products available from Heutink’s catalogue. Storyphones has received a wonderful response from all of the dutch teachers. They were very impressed that there were ‘no wires to chew’ and thought the whole concept was amazing. It’s been very interesting to meet teachers from a different country and to find out about their approach to education. It seems that everyone’s concerns are similar regardless of which country you teach in and speaking and listening skills are definately high on the agenda.

2011 is the Year of the Bat.  Bats are wonderful creatures and are a protected species in our country. This protection has allowed the numbers of bat to rise over the last few years making it more likely that we can see bats flitting around our gardens and parks. Thursday 3rd November is National Non-Fiction Day and to celebrate this along with the Year of the Bat, we have created two podcasts full of bat facts for you and your children to listen along to.

Most children know something about bats, some of which is quite likely not to be true! We were delighted to invite Paul Lupton along to answer some questions about bats and dispel some popular myths. Paul was a teacher for many years and  now runs his  business, Argus Ecology, full time. Paul and his colleagues are a mine of information about bats and have put together a fact sheet for us along with some of their photographs. They are very keen to encourage children to find out more about bats and to help them understand how they can create a bat friendly environment.

If you would like to find out more about bats then you can visit the Bat Conservation Trust or The Year of the Bat’s websites. These websites are  full of information and have lots of resources to download.

The Podcasts

There are two podcasts suitable for different ages and that cover the following information.

Over 7’s: Different species of bat, food, size, mothers and babies, bats in winter, myths, bat sounds and creating a bat friendly environment.

Running time: 9m 10s

Under 7’s: Different species of bat, food, size, mothers and babies, bats in winter, myths, bat sounds and creating a bat friendly environment.

Running time: 6m 39s

You can download the podcasts and accompanying fact sheet and photographs here.

Once again, StoryPhones are running a free seminar and demonstrations on “Using Digital Audio in EYFS and KS1″ and we would like to invite everyone to come along and join us.

The seminar will be led by Eleanor Johnson, the creator of StoryPhones who will explain how MP3 players are opening up the world of audio for children and allowing practitioners to be more creative than ever in their use of audio stories, songs and resources across the curriculum.

The seminar will run on Tuesday 1st November at 2.00pm and 4.15 pm, at The Greenhouse, Greencroft Park, Annfield Plain, Co Durham, DH9 7XN. Every setting attending will receive the StoryPhones Bookshelf software and a free audio book.

Running alongside the semiar will be a classroom demonstration area, opportunities for hands on demonstrations of StoryPhones and an opportunity to see the huge range of audio resources available from the BookShelf download store.

The seminars are free and anyone can attend. Alternatively, you can drop in at any time for a demonstration and a chance to chat to our StoryPhones team.

Places for the seminars are filling rapidly and we only have a few spaces left for the 4.15 session. If you would like to attend then please phone 0845 652 0906 to book your place.

National Non-Fiction day is a celebration of non-fiction books and shows children that non-fiction books can be just as fun, exciting and absorbing as a story book! The day is organised by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups and Scholastic Children’s Books.

There are some fabulous non-fiction books available, beautifully written and illustrated. The National Non-Fiction Day website has a wealth of information available including a fantastic list of non-fiction books. This list recommends non-fiction books for all ages from a wide and varied range of topics including machines, people, animals, history, the Earth and Space. The website also has free downloads and information about authors and illustrators, everything you need to get your National Non-Fiction day started . If you would like to visit the website then please click here.

We have all of the Walker Nature Story Book titles available as MP3 downloads in the BookShelf download store. These books are a wonderful way of introducing young children to the world of non-fiction. Written in picture book format, the downloads include a ‘listen along’ and ‘read along ‘version of the story, an accompanying fact track and a song. As with all Walker audio books, these are beautifully produced and will captivate any listening child (and adult)!

It’s National Poetry Day on Thursday. I love poetry, I enjoy the way poets play with words and rhyme to create a story, image or emotion. Quite a few years ago when I was a supply teacher I used to carry a poetry folder around with me. The children knew all about the folder and we always used to have a poetry session at some point in the day. After a while, certain poems became firm favourites and were always requested.  The most popular ones were about crocodiles and knickers (although not in the same poem!)

National Poetry Day is a celebration of poetry for all ages. You can visit the official website to find out more about the day and to download ideas and poems.

If you are looking for new poems The Children’s Poetry Archive is a brilliant site. It’s crammed with beautifully written poems. You can also listen to recordings of these poems read by the poets themselves. I particularly liked the poem ‘The Seashell’ beautifully read by the poet, James Berry and to my great delight, Spike Milligan reading ‘In The Land of The Bumbly Boo’. My nursery children loved this poem, their favourite part was shouting the last line of the poem. There’s a such a range of poems for different themes or you can search by form such as rhymes or limericks.

Poems For … also has children’s poems to download. You will need to register and once you’ve done this you can download the poems. The children’s poems are in the ‘poems for … all ages’ section. They print as posters and you can place them around your building, outside too.

Of course, children are poets themselves and you can record their poems to share with others.

Children’s Book Week is a campaign led by The Book Trust and is all about encouraging children to read for pleasure. Having started my reading journey with Enid Blyton and Ladybird books, I have had the privilege to teach and to raise my family in an era when children’s literature has gone from strength to strength. There is a huge and wonderful selection of books available and now through technology, these are easily accessible for all children. Children’s Book Week is the opportunity to curl up with a story and disappear into the world of imagination or information. So whether you and your children are enjoying stories by reading a book, listening to an audio story, reading an ebook or taking part in storytelling, we hope everyone has fun.

There is a lot of information on the web about Children’s Book Week. Here are some sites we have found which you may like to visit.

The Book Trust’s Children’s Book Week Campaign

You will find free resources to download including posters, ideas and more useful links.

Playing by the Book

Zoe Toft regularly blogs about children’s books. She has lots of good ideas about ways of encouraging children to love reading. Zoe has some very good suggestions for Children’s Book Week.

Storyworks

Mary Medlicott is a story teller and author of several books including ‘The Little Book of Story Telling’ published by A & C Black. Her website has some brilliant resources and ideas to help get your storytelling started. Mary has just started a new blog to coincide with Children’s Book Week with the aim of encouraging people to become storytellers themselves. Mary’s first blog is full of very good ideas and thoughts and I am looking forward to reading her new posts.

Angela Sterling is a French and German teacher with years of experience when it comes to teaching young children how to learn a new language. Angela set up her company Lingotot to provide an opportunity for young children to learn a new language and runs classes in schools, nurseries and with  families teaching languages  through songs, games and play.

 She has translated well know rhymes and songs into French and has written an accompanying songbook with simple to use instructions for the non specialist teacher. The songs are beautifully recorded at an pace ideally suited for children to listen and sing along to.  

 Angela has written an article especially for StoryPhones in which she shares ideas and tips to encourage language learning. If you would like to read Angela’s article, then please click here.

 For more information about Lingotot then you can visit Angela’s website here.

As committed supporters of the spoken word, StoryPhones is delighted to have the wonderful radio plays by Wireless Theatre Kids available in the BookShelf Download store.

Wireless Theatre Kids is an online audio production company who aim to enhance, stimulate and touch the minds and hearts of children from many diverse cultures and countries using radio drama, stories and comedy. Their goal is to develop a love of theatre and literature within those aged 3 to 15 years through the use of radio drama.

Using traditional tales and new stories, Wireless Theatre Kids produce and record audio plays with  actors, sound effects and music bringing  the story to life. With children’s radio programmes rapidly disappearing, Wireless Theatre Kids are aiming to keep children’s radio drama alive and making it easily accessible in a format today’s children readily understand.

Many of Wireless Theatre Kids audio plays will appeal to older children and there are new and original stories for younger ones too. Your children can listen to traditional tales such as Rumplestiltskin or the Three Little Pigs and new and orginal plays will appeal to older children.

If you would like to know more about Wireless Theatre Kids, and keep up to date with their new plays and live recordings, then you can visit their website here.

Stand 45 at the Nursery World North Exhibition

7th and 8th October, Event City, Manchester

We will be demonstrating our StoryPhones systems and Little Listeners and chatting enthusiastically about audio resources and how they can support your children’s communication development. We also have some wonderful new language resources in our download store. When you visit our stand you can find out about the show discounts and enter our prize draw to win one of our award winning loud speaking MP3 players.

September has a been a busy month for us, we have already attended two exhibitions. We made lots of new friends, met old ones and heard all about the different ways you are using your StoryPhones systems from treasure hunts in the nursery to silent discos!

Childcare Expo, Coventry

This was the first time we had attended the Childcare Expo and it gave us a chance to meet lot people involved in childminding and childcare. Everyone we met impresed us with their dedication to the care and education of young children and were keen to find out about new ways they could support the learning and development of the children in their care.

We caught up with our old friends at Playscope, Rokkaplay, Speak Clearly and The Sweetcounter. We also liked the software Medilert have developed to help practitioners keep track of medicines.

Scottish Learning Festival, Glasgow

We were delighted to meet lots of nurseries and schools who have been using their StoryPhones systems for quite a while now. One nursery are using their system to develop their children’s communication skills by creating treasure hunts and following the clues. We met one teacher from a Junior school who uses StoryPhones to encourage children’s love of stories. She finds that the children like to listen to the stories and chat about them with their friends afterwards. She said “It really encourages their love of stories”.

It was also a chance to catch up with old friends again. We have known Sticky Kids since we began StoryPhones and they were one of the first content providers to make their songs available in our download store. Sticky Kids have produced a wonderful set of songs ready for the 2012 Olympics. Their new album, ‘Go for Gold’ was a sell out at the Scottish Learning Festival.