The LiteracyShed, by the Education Shed Ltd, is an educational platform that features a wide variety of literacy resources with a special focus on visual literacy. The site offers a a large collection of high quality films and video content for teachers to use with kids in the primary classroom. The purpose is to help kids improve their literacy skills and become independent learners. While most of the video content offered is appropriate for primary aged students, teachers and parents are advised to watch the video content first before sharing it with kids.
As the site owner explained: “The aim is to provide high quality resources that can be used in stand alone literacy lessons, can form the basis for a whole Literacy unit or can support literacy units that you already have in place. With the many book based activities I would advocate using the book alongside the digital resource.”
Besides the Literacy Shed, the Education Shed also offers several other interesting educational resources including:
1. Spelling Shed
Spelling Shed offers a large collection of resources to help kids learn spelling and word formation. These include printable lesson plans, teaching slides, worksheets, and many more. The platform supports data tracking allowing teachers to see how often kids practice and track their learning progress.
2. Phonics Shed
Phonics Shed “Phonics Shed is a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme with coverage from sound awareness in pre-school, into a full phonics scheme of learning that leads into Spelling Shed’s complementary spelling system.The comprehensive planning and overview documents are accompanied by physical and digital books, flashcards and all the supplementary resources needed to follow a flexible multi-sensory approach. You even get a Joe puppet to introduce to the children and to support your teaching!”
3. MathShed
MathShed is “a mathematics platform designed to significantly impact the enjoyment of mathematics while improving results. It is built with students, teachers and parents in mind and aims to make learning mathematics facts fun for students as well as simple for teachers to manage. The game aspect of MathShed ensures children are engaged and eager to practise their key maths skills regularly. The low-stakes games, quizzes and reward systems ensure that children find learning maths fun. The games can be played in class or assigned for home learning, making them perfect for in-school learning, homework or a hybrid model which many schools now use.”
4. QuizShed
QuizShed “helps students to learn in their own way through quickfire and fun educational quizzes. Use QuizShed quizzes in class or remotely. Use with a group, as a starter activity or a consolidation task. Create your own quiz question sets to play or to share. Fully integrates with the EdShed system and includes theming for Spelling Shed and MathShed for subscribers.”
5. Literacy Shed Plus
LiteracyShed Plus “is a collection of English resources designed to save teachers time with their planning. Hundreds of fully resourced unit plans based on short films and high-quality novels are now available for use across the primary school age range. In addition to these, there are also additional writing prompts, vocabulary resources and display materials.”
