LATEST – 50 of the best EDUCATION APPS from the Irish Times Just Click Here
If the curriculum is afraid to exercise a child’s brain these days try:
www.clickmazes.com
www.puzzles.com
www.thinkfun.com
www.supermaze.com
www.justriddlesandmore.com
www.funbrain.com
www.logicmazes.com
Some Nice Videos
Look Up! The Billion-Bug Highway You Can’t See
https://vimeo.com/21493827
The Invisible Universe Of The Human Microbiome
https://vimeo.com/78672611
Ants that count their way home!
https://vimeo.com/21497515
How much does a hurricane weigh?
https://vimeo.com/15395389
The music of a spider’s web
https://vimeo.com/97841686
Other Skills
Critical Thinking (See also “Nourishing Teachers and Parents” page.)
1. Teens – How well can you argue? To test your thinking skills Click this link and have fun with the “Students” page.
2. Podcasts introducing critical thinking, how to argue, how to recognise an argument etc with Prof Marianne Talbott: click here
Learn to touch-type with the BBC’s fun lessons (How much more efficient would we be if civil servants could touch-type?) Click here to begin
The Outdoor Classroom – working close to nature, knowing how food grows and that everything lives and dies means gardening is a real education
Should you want to get children thinking visit The Thinking Classroom here (we loved his book Thinking Stories to Wake Up Your Mind)
Learning and Studying Effectively
To learn effectively there are a few things to consider: different people have different preferences for learning – visually, auditorily, by reading and writing and kinaesthetically (summed up as VARK or VAK). Learners and teachers need to be aware of this to make learning personal. Here are some ideas for learners, parents and teachers.
Neuroscience and learning. Short videos produced by Harvard Graduate School of Education on the brain and its structure and function: Brain Matters Videos
The VARK website allows you to take a free online test to ascertain your own learning preference. Visit VARK here
And here’s a couple of books to get you started. Learning Styles and Personalized Teaching by Barbara Prashnig and Multiple Intelligences by Mike Fleetham
When a student is studying independently they can consider ways to improve their study techniques and skills. Here’s a little help:
Learning To Learn by Tom Barwood.
The Good Study Guide by Andy Northedge
Study Smarter Not Harder by Kevin Paul
Literature
Two books by Annabel Pitcher have greatly impressed: link
Sexism begins early in school – just think who dominates the playground with 
their footballs!: Girls Are Best by Sandi Toksvig is a good antidote. (Speech is power: the 4,000 year campaign to silence women. A new BBC documentary Ascent of Woman outlines the origins and history of silencing women. An article on the series by Dr Amanda Foreman can be read here.)
Multi award-winning novelist Siobhan Dowd has written for older children and teenagers. The Knife of Never Letting Go was finished by Patrick Ness. Have a browse here.
The Song of Achilles Since the classics – the basis of our civilization – is not taught in school, this prize-winning fictional retelling of a great story is a good compensation for teenagers and adults. (Younger readers might enjoy Rick Riordan’s books on ancient Greece and Egypt.)
A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride. Eimear, from Castlebar, Co. Mayo, won the Goldsmith’s prize and is one of only 8 authors to be nominated for the new Folio prize among other prizes which she’s won. Her novel has now been turned in to a play.
Eimear McBride’s debut novel tells, with astonishing insight and in brutal detail, the story of a young woman’s relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, to read A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator’s head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn’t always comfortable – but it is always a revelation.
Green djinns and a green boy: the best summer reading for children by Melanie McDonagh click here
Some Financial Times Recommendations (link)
Young adult
In Darkling Wood, by Emma Carroll, Faber 
While her little brother recovers from surgery, Alice is sent to live with her grumpy Grandmother Nell in a country cottage menaced by encroaching trees. But when Nell plans to have them cut down, this displeases not just the locals, but possibly the fairies, too. A tender tale of family ghosts and secrets.
Arena 13, by Joseph Delaney, Bodley Head 
Delaney’s new series after his bestselling Spook’s saga introduces Leif, a provincial lad who runs away to Gindeen city to join the ranks of teenage gladiators fighting alongside sentient automata called “lacs”. Part futuristic dystopia, part Roman epic fantasy, it’s gutsy, gory and compelling.
The Door that Led to Where, by Sally Gardner, Hot Key 
A troubled London teenager finds the key to a door that opens on to the year 1830. It has to be sealed permanently to stop the traffic of historical artefacts, but which side will he decide to remain on? Juxtaposing gangs, drugs and top hats, it’s another gem from prizewinning author Gardner.
Children’s
The Terrible Two, by Mac Barnett and Jory John, Amulet Books 
Schoolboy Miles Murphy thinks he is the greatest practical joker ever, until he moves to Yawnee Valley and meets his nemesis, Niles Sparks. Rivalry turns to friendship in an engaging story about the fine art of pranking and the virtue of collaboration.
The 13-Storey Treehouse, by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, Macmillan
Looking for the next Wimpy Kid, Captain Underpants or Tom Gates? Look no further. This rambunctious Australian offering has little in the way of plot but plenty of gags, digressions, postmodern self-awareness, and freewheeling imagination. The titular treehouse, a fusion of theme park and supervillain lair, is every kid’s dream.
Anyone But Ivy Pocket, by Caleb Krisp, Bloomsbury
The Moonstone meets Harry Potter in a Victorian-era romp featuring ghosts, parallel worlds and creepy hooded dwarfs. Heroine Ivy Pocket is a wonderful creation, dauntless, self-deluded, never letting her own poor judgment or rejection by others stand in her way.
The Whale that Fell in Love with a Submarine, by Akiyuki Nosaka, Pushkin Children’s Books 
First English translation of a 2003 Japanese story collection that draws on the author’s childhood experiences of the firebombing of Kobe in 1945. Amid the madness of war, humans and animals make tentative, half-understood connections. Every tale strikes a plaintive, melancholic note.
Picture books
A White Butterfly, by Laurie Cohen and Barbara Ortelli, Minedition
This board book explores colours and their associations. With die-cutting, embossing and a dash of prismatic silver ink, it’s a lavish, lovely looking product. A compellingly simple text is illuminated by illustrations in a style reminiscent of Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar).
The Book With No Pictures, by BJ Novak
As the title suggests, the services of an illustrator were not employed. Instead, US actor-comedian Novak’s witty work relies entirely on text and typesetting. It’s a bedtime book best read aloud by an adult who doesn’t mind having to follow embarrassing instructions and sing silly songs.
How Things Work, by Okido, Thames & Hudson 
From the makers of the bimonthly kids’ magazine Okido comes this beautifully designed, fact-packed compendium. With charts, games, puzzles, quizzes, make-it-yourself projects and Where’s Wally?-style picture searches, this is manna for the inquisitive young mind.
Stephen Blendell's Parenting and Education Website and Blog 