Impressively produced, what you get for your money is an audio CD and CD-ROM as well as a handbook of links across the curriculum from literacy to citizenship for Years 3&4 via music, art & design science and geography all based on the narrative poem - Jack and the Beans Talk.

The CD-ROM provides an animated book, whiteboard activities and a bank of resources. The book can be used on standalone machines as well as on an interactive whiteboard and children can be read to or read the story themselves. Good animation, sound, rhyme, pace and graphics make for an engaging tale and the basis for masses of cross curricula activities.

Using this on an interactive whiteboard gives you access to thirteen activities all based on the poem. These are open activities, for instance by showing a page at a time you can use the built-in tools to mask words and replace the rhymes, using the pen tool to circle letter strings, or the spotlighter and reveal tools to discuss how words are constructed. Alternatively, you can have a page free of text and create your own version of the story, or one without colour or words allowing a totally new story to be told. Other activities provide just the backgrounds and characters, or speech bubbles attached to the characters.

For older children, they can develop script writing by masking out words in speech bubbles and writing new conversations or working on or off the screen with a playscript scaffold. Other activities offer labelling, sequencing of events, instructions, alliteration, character passports all supported by differentiated photocopiable worksheets.

The ideas in the handbook encourage teachers to integrate the themes into other areas enhancing creativity and enjoyment and to help with this the resource bank provides the tools with which to make your own whiteboard activities, displays, group and independent tasks using the backgrounds, characters, objects from the tale as well as photographs of real runner beans, theatres and puppets.

The audio CD holds the author’s introduction to this version of classic fairytale, the story, as well as songs and instrumentals with which to create you very own Mini Bean Operetta while dancing to the Bean Polka. This package could be dipped into for specific needs or as the basis for a term’s work but would work really well as a whole-school or Key Stage project.

Ratings and details

Product: Jack and the Beans Talk
Price:
£185 Single user
£345 Site licence
Requirements: SMART or Promethean whiteboards – other boards present ten activities as PowerPoint documents which you can use your whiteboard tools with in the normal way
Ages: 8-9

Shoo Fly Publishing
Tel: 0191 519 1800
www.shooflypublishing.co.uk