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Story Lab is the theme of the 2012 Summer Reading Challenge.
What is Story Lab? It’s a five-sided hi-tech HQ that attracts stories from all over the world and sends them spinning throughout the city – and beyond! It’s the place to read, collect, share, create, transmit and broadcast stories
Like all Summer Reading Challenges, Story Lab will be divided into three stages, and as children read books over the summer, they will collect stickers to help the Story Lab kids to complete each stage. On completion, children will receive a medal and certificate.
Stage 1 – Bronze
Bronze coin – To retrieve an ancient bronze coin from the vault beneath the museum, you’ll need to read two books.
Stage 2 – Silver
Silver mirror – Moving on to the river (site of Olympic activity and arts) the next stage is to recover the silver mirror from the banks of a small island. You do this by reading two more books.
Stage 3 – Gold
Gold medal – The final stage is to retrieve a golden medal hidden in the Olympic Park. Again, you need to read two more books to complete the challenge.
The cast – characters in Story Lab:
Story Lab features four characters: Lex, Rani, Will and Evie. They are helped by Aesop, the ginger lab cat, and the operation is overseen by Prof Cortex. She’s the computer genius behind the lab.
From June, you will be able access the Story Lab website.
On the first day of Lloyds TSB National School Sport Week, 25 June 2012, we will be celebrating London 2012 World Sport Day, part of the Get Set goes global programme.
It’s a chance for schools to celebrate the world’s arrival in the UK for the greatest festivals of sport, and all the Values and Games-related work you have been doing.
Schools will be invited to take part in an opening celebration and that will be streamed to classrooms and assembly halls across the UK, and around the world.
Branded tools and resources will be available to help schools create and host an international celebration that embraces the teams and athletes of the 205 Olympic and 170 Paralympic teams. The aim is to celebrate the multiculturalism of the school’s local community, and to showcase the sports and cultures of their chosen Olympic and Paralympic teams.
After this opening celebration, schools can continue their National School Sport Week by organising a whole host of sporting activities, encouraging parents and the wider community to get involved and support their local school, helping fuel further excitement and anticipation for the start of the London 2012 Games.
Your school will need to be registered with Get Set (the official London 2012 education programme) to access the London 2012 World Sport Day resources that will be available later this year.
You can also access exclusive benefits from London 2012 by mentioning your involvement in London 2012 World Sport Day and National School Sport Week in your application to join the Get Set network, the London 2012 reward and recognition scheme for schools and colleges.
Visit http://www.london2012.com/getset for more details.
Once you are signed up to London 2012 World Sport Day, presented by Lloyds TSB, you will be able to access the following resources:
- An event pack full of branded materials to help decorate schools for the opening celebration and their own international celebrations
- Activity ideas for schools to embrace the cultures of their supported teams thoughout the life of a school
- An exciting toolkit and case studies to guide teachers and students in the planning of their opening celebration and international celebrations
- Create your own school goodies and decorations by using our ‘we’re a supporter’ kits for your supported Olympic and Paralympic team
Moth Night (formerly National Moth Night) is the annual celebration of moth recording throughout Britain and Ireland. It retains the familiar combination of moth recording by enthusiasts with local events aimed at raising awareness of moths among the general public. Each year will have a theme (although recorders are always welcome and encouraged to do their own thing) and the event will take place on different dates. However, in response to feedback from participants, future events will be confined to the warmest months and each event will last for three consecutive nights (Thursday-Saturday).
Recording can take place on any one or more of these nights. We hope that these changes will greatly improve the chances of favourable weather for moth recording during the event. The other major change is a move to online recording only. We are working in association with the Biological Records Centre at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology to create a comprehensive but easy-to-use online recording system that will be the route for all future records. As well as vastly improving the efficiency of handling the many thousands of records received each year, this new system will give participants immediate feedback about the event. The full findings will continue to be published in the journal Atropos but, in the future, we will be providing better feedback to all those who take part in the event.
Moth Night 2012 will take place on 21 – 23 June 2012. The theme will be the moths of brownfield habitats (such as old quarries, disused railway lines, reclaimed coal tips, gravel and clay workings etc.) and will include both daytime searches and the usual night-time recording.
Moth Night 2013 will take place on 8 – 10 August 2013 and Moth Night 2014 will take place on 3 – 5 July 2014.
If you have any queries with respect to Moth Night 2012, please email enquiries@mothnight.info
Refugee Week is a UK-wide programme of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK, and encourages a better understanding between communities.
There is a huge amount of information available:
The longest day
http://www.picnicweek.co.uk/
Open Farm Sunday is a fantastic project which has seen hundreds of farmers across the UK opening up their farm for one Sunday each year since 2006! It is a fantastic opportunity for everyone, young and old, to discover at first hand what it means to be a farmer.
Take time to listen to the birds, soak up the scenery, experience the smells of the farmyard and really get in touch with the land that feeds us. So come and feed your senses on Open Farm Sunday.
Each event is unique with its own activities – based around the farm’s own individual story. Activities during the day may include a farm walk, nature trail, tractor and trailer rides, pond dipping, activities for children, a mini farmers market or picnics.
Find a farm to visit near you!
Are you a farmer? Why not get involved and open up your farm, click here to find out how.
Tap the Sky!
National School Grounds Week is Learning Through Landscape’s annual campaign to show just how easy – and worthwhile – it can be to take teaching and learning outdoors. Research tells us that learning beyond the classroom is often more memorable and helps children make sense of their learning. In fact, Ofsted said, “When planned and implemented well, learning outside the classroom contributes significantly to raising standards and improving pupils’ personal, social and emotional development.”
This year LTL is teaming up with Waterwise to deliver a week long programme of ideas, inspiration and support for schools and early years settings across the UK to ‘Tap the Sky’. Throughout the week we will be encouraging you to get children outdoors to learn about water, experiment with it and play with it – while also thinking about ways of conserving it. We’ll be providing resources to help children learn about where water comes from, what it is, how it is used and how they can make their schools, homes and communities more water efficient.
Register here
Hundreds of millions of girls and boys throughout the world are engaged in work that deprives them of adequate education, health, leisure and basic freedoms, violating their rights. Of these children, more than half are exposed to the worst forms of child labour such as work in hazardous environments, slavery, or other forms of forced labour, illicit activities such as drug trafficking and prostitution, as well as involvement in armed conflict.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) launched the first World Day Against Child Labour in 2002 as a way to highlight the plight of these children. The day, which is observed on June 12th, is intended to serve as a catalyst for the growing worldwide movement against child labour, reflected in the huge number of ratifications of ILO Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child labour and ILO Convention No. 138 on the minimum age for employment.
The World Day Against Child Labour provides and opportunity to gain further support of individual governments and that of the ILO social partners, civil society and others, including schools, youth and women’s groups as well as the media, in the campaign against child labour.
National School Sport Week which is delivered in partnership with Youth Sport Trust, will continue to encourage your pupils to take part in more sport, try new Olympic and Paralympic Sports and live the Values of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. In 2011, over 4 million young people took part in Britain’s biggest celebration of school sport.
If you are registered for National School Sport Week, you will receive the free London 2012 World Sport Day resources, the Flame Followers resource pack , and have the chance to be a part of the action as the Flame travels for 70 days on its historic journey through the UK, before arriving at the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games on 27 July.
On World Oceans Day people around the planet celebrate and honor the body of water which links us all, for what it provides humans and what it represents. Be a part of this growing global celebration!
The world’s ocean:
- Generates most of the oxygen we breathe
- Helps feed us
- Regulates our climate
- Cleans the water we drink
- Offers us a pharmacopoeia of potential medicines
- Provides limitless inspiration!
Now we can give back.
Take part in World Oceans Day events and activities this year and help protect our ocean for the future!
It’s up to each one of us to help ensure that our ocean is protected and conserved for future generations. World Oceans Day allows us to:
- Change perspective – encourage individuals to think about what the ocean means to them and what it has to offer all of us with hopes of conserving it for present and the future generations.
- Learn – discover the wealth of diverse and beautiful ocean creatures and habitats, how our daily actions affect them, and how we are all interconnected.
- Change our ways – we are all linked to, and through, the ocean! By taking care of your backyard, you are acting as a caretaker of our ocean. Making small modifications to your everyday habits will greatly benefit our blue planet.
- Celebrate – whether you live inland or on the coast we are all connected to the ocean; take the time to think about how the ocean affects you, and how you affect the ocean, and then organize or participate in activities that celebrate our world ocean.
Sign up for free to download the Dr. Seuss manual with age-appropriate activities, promotional materials, and more!
World Environment Day is an annual event that is aimed at being the biggest and most widely celebrated global day for positive environmental action. World Environment Day activities take place all year round but climax on 5 June every year, involving everyone from everywhere.
World Environment Day celebration began in 1972 and has grown to become the one of the main vehicles through which the UN stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and encourages political attention and action.
Through World Environment Day, the UN Environment Programme is able to personalize environmental issues and enable everyone to realize not only their responsibility, but also their power to become agents for change in support of sustainable and equitable development.
World Environment Day is also a day for people from all walks of life to come together to ensure a cleaner, greener and brighter outlook for themselves and future generations.
Everyone counts in this initiative and World Environment Day relies on you to make this happen! We call for action – organize a neighborhood clean-up, stop using plastic bags and get your community to do the same, plant a tree or better yet organize a collective tree planting effort, walk to work, start a recycling drive . . . the possibilities are endless.
The Queen celebrates 60 years as Monarch in 2012.
More info: http://www.thediamondjubilee.org
Pinning The Queen’s History
Historypin, working with Google, wants you to contribute photos, videos and other memories of The Queen over the last 60 years to an online gallery to celebrate Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee
Commonwealth Time Capsule
The Royal Commonwealth Society wants you to contribute your stories to create a ‘people’s history’ of the Commonwealth during the 60 years of The Queen’s reign
The Jubilee Woods Project
The Princess Royal is Patron of the Jubilee Woods Project which aims to plant six million trees across the UK in Diamond Jubilee year
Nominate a website to be preserved forever by the British Library
The British Library is curating a special collection of websites about the Diamond Jubilee for the UK Web Archive.
Timeline
From fulfilling her role as Queen at the age of 25, to raising a family, to world travel on a scale unparalleled by previous Monarchs: learn more about The Queen’s extraordinary life and times on our interactive timeline
Quizzes
From crowns to corgis, Accession to Australia, medals to motorcars: test your knowledge of all things Royal in our series of illustrated quizzes
