In the United Kingdom Mothering Sunday will be on 3rd April this year, as it is always the fourth Sunday in Lent. It is traditional in many schools for the children to make either a card or a small gift for the children to present to their Mum's.  I really like this 'Chore card' which is a flowerpot filled with seperate card flowers, with each flower having a different chore the child promises to do on the reverse, bringing home the message that children should be helping out their parents. Using the same theme of flowers in a pot you could try this pop up flowers card, which links nicely to objectives in the QCA Moving Pictures unit. Along the theme of helping out Mum, children can type out and print a set of coupons or vouchers, which entitle Mum to the services of the child to complete the jobs they have put on the vouchers. This same site also has a whole range of printables, including cards, bookmarks, worksheets and themed writing paper.

If you would like to make a gift there are loads of ideas here, that include a woven paper basket, tissue paper flowers or a flowerpot pen holder. You can find some simple worksheet style activities for very small children, including a mother and baby matching activity, badges, frames and simple card printables here, at My Chalkface.

For and easy to understand explanation of what Mother's Day is in Britain, use the Woodlands website, which is aimed at primary age children, and if you register with TES you can download a free powerpoint from their resources section for use in the classroom on the interactive whiteboard.

National Storytelling week starts on 29th January 2011. There are lots of resources available for use in the classroom for use on the interactive whiteboard and to support visual literacy and get your children telling stories.

Children in KS1 can watch a treasure chest being washed ashore in this simple visual story starter with an accompanying onscreen vocabulary bank. Or try this slightly longer one called 'The Missing Apples' in the groovy garden,  which has a longer slightly more complex introduction that gives children a story to complete. Both of these could be used for children to continue as a whole class story telling session.

For a wide range of video clips for story starters that have been compiled under different headings try these visual literacy video clips. If you would like to get your children writing stories online then try this range of story starters where they can make choices under a range of different story types to compile their own story, saving that 'I don't know where to start' feeling.

Teachers TV offers a selection of dramatic story starter video clips, probably best suited to KS2, there are seven on one fifteen minute downloadable video or another nine on different themes on a seperate download. These range from a piglet exploring a barn to a girl looking around a spooky basement and provide a good varied selection to get a storytelling or writing session going.

Or for very young children try this whiteboard activity to create different characters to put into a story.

Supply teachers, do you ever arrive in a different school with hardly any time to spare and find that there is no work left ready for you or just a bare outline plan? If so, this is where stuff4teaching comes into it's own. So long as you can log on to the computer, (not always easy I know when schools forget to tell you how to get hold of the log in password), you will always have a ready supply of resources to fit your age group, topic or subject. Many teachers save their favourite sites to their 'favourites' section on their laptop or home PC, but this is no good in a new school where you have to use the available computer that is on the school network.

On Stuff4teaching you can save all your favourite resources to your favourites on the site and access them from any place, any time. Or you can remember or note the resource title, and put that straight into the search box. Whether you are teaching KS1, KS2 or Reception for a lesson, a day, a week or longer, just log in and opt for your age group, then your subject and topic and resources for the interactive whiteboard, or printables, will all be there sorted into sections, selected, checked and ready for you to use. We add new resource links all the time, ready for you to use, whatever your location. So never worry about turning up at a school and having no suitable work or resources again, just log in to stuff4teaching as a lifesaver at your fingertips.

Most of us will have received many Christmas gifts and presents, and so will all our children. It is a great idea to encourage children to not only say 'Thank you' for their presents, but to write a thank you letter or note too. Friends and relatives are often particularly touched to receive a thank you letter from a child, and it is a good habit to develop and instil from an early age.

The internet and computer can offer many ideas to help with thank you letters. You can design, write and print out a custom made colour or black and white card for any occasion with even an envelope to match. For a simple computer version to demonstrate with on an interactive whiteboard or use on a PC and print out this one is excellent with just a few simple options to choose from.

Young children may like printable thank you cards to colour in and if you want to encourage slightly older children to write a letter rather than send a card use these writing frames.  

For colour printable cards to print and then write in yourself there are loads of designs to choose from here or here.

There are some great free Christmas games and activities that can be used on the laptop, computer or even in the classroom on the Interactive whiteboard.

Try making a traditional nativity scene dragging pictures onto a manger background. Similar activities using click and drag for decorating a Snowman or a Christmas tree are also great for this time of year or you can reassemble Rudolph. Another game is to find Rudolph in this missing Rudolph activity. For more great reindeer fun try this online reindeer orchestra, where you can play tunes on the noses of various reindeer.

Make the children laugh with this excellent dancing Father Christmas, change his dance, the music or add some dancing Christmas trees. To tax their brains just a little try this Christmas pelmanism game. Or for more Santa's try this online Santa Guess Who? game. If your children are very young and learning to count try out this counting Santa activity.

For a range of traditional Christmas songs for a karaoke sing along visit here.

Merry Christmas everyone, from Stuff4teaching.

Nobody likes to think of the summer holidays drawing to a close, but that time of year is upon us again and we start to think about the year ahead and our new classes. What can we use to make our classrooms more inviting places without dipping into our hard earned cash or drawing on non-existent school funds? Loads of websites offer a range of free resources to help brighten up and enliven our otherwise potentially dull and empty classrooms at the beginning of the new school year, so here are a selection of my favourites for the coming year.

Welcome your children to their new classroom with this range of  editable welcome signs. For labels for drawers, pegs and around the classroom there is a wonderful huge range of colour editable templates with a great choice of pictures at Communication4all.

To enliven those fresh new wall displays try this great selection of topic and subject themed lettering and for desktop alphabet strips and alphabet letter cards or displays there are some available free at PencilStreet, although you do have to register (for free) to download them.

Get your children organised and your year of to a great start with this variety of positive rules posters and set your children up with their individual targets on this Beanstalk Target Display.

For self registration try this Jungle display for the wall, or for interactive whiteboard self registration choose your topic from footballers to people who help us or aliens with loads of others too.

If your class is as culturally diverse as mine then there are some great dual language display posters available, including colours, days and months of the year.

If you want more ideas for your classroom we have a huge selection of links to the best free resources to set up your classroom in the 'Classroom Organisation' category for your age group.

Happy New School Year!