Learning Essentials from Microsoft

Today I've received a copy of Microsoft 'Classroom assistance for Learners and teachers.'   This two CD pack contains 'Learning Essentials' and the 'Best of Innovative Teachers'.

According to the website Learning Essentials "helps students get started, stay organised, and successfully complete high-quality assignments. Learning Essentials can help educators easily create effective instructional resources, complete administrative tasks, and implement new teaching strategies and with the Content Development Kit, you can create even more templates and tools to use with Learning Essentials."

Included on the CD, (or in the free download) there is a big collection of templates (although most of them are more for secondary teachers) including handwriting sheets, graph paper, certificates,  multiplication tables and student awards.  One of the more interesting and useful templates is for making tests for the children.  This allows you to quickly set up a quiz / test using common types of question such as true / false, multiple choice, short answer, missing word etc.  All you need to do then is type in the question.

The second CD, the 'best of Innovative teachers' is a smaller version of the Innovative teachers microsite at Microsoft.  All the activities and resources are for British schools rather than American.  There are very few primary resources included on the CD.  Maths has a number patterns PowerPoint, Literacy has a nursery rhymes and fun with words activity and there are a few general KS2 / 3 resources.  All of these, plus many others can be downloaded from the website will a little searching though.  This CD is obviously more use for the secondary teachers.

As a free resource it can't be knocked and I'll certainly be using some of the templates to help me, especially the graph paper ones which I can edit, it's just a pity there isn't more primary friendly resources on the CD.  Have a look and download what you need.