Night Zoo Teacher

Good evening and welcome to the Night Zoo Teachers' blog. This is a space for educators and innovators to share exciting creative practices. It is also a place to pick up hints and tips about using Night Zookeeper with your students. Visit http://www.nightzookeeper.com for more information.

[nightzooteacher]

We’ve moved!

We are excited to announce the launch of our brand new Night Zookeeper blog!

You can visit the new blog through this link.

The new style makes it even easier to search for relevant content, whether that is resources for teaching, articles about EdTech, tips for parents, general news and updates or writing from guest bloggers. You can even check out our Tweets if you are not already following us on @nightzookeeper. We hope you enjoy it! Why not check out these articles from the new blog...

Read: 10 Tips for using Tech in the classroom

Read: Comprehension Lesson for Chapter One: The Giraffes of Whispering Wood

Read: How to keep students excited to write all year long

[nightzooteacher]

Night Zookeeper after World Creative Writing Month

There is no doubt that World Creative Writing Month is a highlight on the Night Zoo calendar, and we love that the competition brings many new classrooms to the site each March.

But the fun doesn’t end in March - we plan exciting activities throughout the entire year to help make teaching easier and learning magical...

April: Star Writing special: have your short story published!

In April we will give one student the opportunity to have their 500 word story featured in the second Night Zookeeper book, The Fire Desert!

May: The Night Zoo Mayoral Elections

Students will learn about persuasive writing, politics and more in this fun event that will capture the imagination of your whole school. Children love inventing their own mayoral candidate for the Night Zoo, writing a manifesto and voting in a global election.

July: Orblympics

We have developed a writing tournament, which challenges students to take part in a range of activities throughout the month.

September: September of Skills

We will be providing a series of online lessons and offline resources based around popular writing skills to master, such as punctuation,using pronouns and adverbials.

October: Halloween

We’ve created a range of spooky Halloween lessons to get students excited about writing at this time of year, and there will be thematic challenges with some great prizes!

November: The International Writing Cup

Your class can compete to be the number 1 writing team in the world. Students are challenged to write their best reports, stories, poems etc throughout the month in order to find their way into the International Writing Cup final! 

Christmas resources and activities

We will provide you with themed Christmas activities in the lead up to the holiday season. We will also give students additional challenges to get them excited to carry on writing at home during the holidays.

 December: Teacher of the Year Award 2018

As the year comes to an end, we ask students to nominate their favourite teacher by writing a short explanation of why they deserve to be crowned Night Zookeeper Teacher of the Year. It is a fantastic opportunity for teachers to read exactly how much they mean to their students. Last year’s Teacher of the Year was also thrilled to receive an iPad Mini and a class set of books!

If you would like to continue using Night Zookeeper after World Creative Writing Month, please drop an email to Olivia at [email protected], and she will help you upgrade your account.

[nightzooteacher]

Night Zookeeper named as one of the EdTech50 2018!

We are delighted to have been chosen as one of the EdTech50, out of 600 overall applications. The EdTech50 awards recognise products and projects that demonstrate impactful and effective use of Edtech in the UK.

The EdTech50 is also a celebration of individuals who have played a key role in developing this area of work. Night Zookeeper Paul was nominated, and went along to the reception event by Jisc and EdTeck UK at the House of Lords last week.

Education technology is one of the fastest growing sectors in the UK, making up 4% of all digital companies (according to the government’s Digital Strategy, February 2017). Businesses in the UK have become world leaders in creating new technology for educational purposes. We are proud to be a part of this cohort, and currently provide innovative education solutions to schools in over 30 countries.

Congratulations to Paul and to everyone else named on the list!

Night Zookeeper Olivia

[nightzooteacher]

1,000 World Story Competition results!

In January, we challenged students to write a 1,000 word story for a very special Star Writing challenge. Every student who had their 1,000 word story published on nightzookeeper.com would be a winner, earning themselves a brand new pack of Night Zookeeper cards!

With over 800 entrants, exactly 300 students had their stories published. We were blown away by the standard of writing, with some students as young as 2nd grade completing the challenge! This also means that in January alone, well over 300,000 words were published on Night Zookeeper thanks to the competition.

We are currently busy packing up cards to send out to schools all over the world! Whilst all entrants did amazingly well, three schools deserve a special mention for the amount of students they have who managed to complete the challenge...

St. Mary Magdalen Catholic School, USA: 35 stories

Harrow International School, Beijing: 31 stories

Ozark Middle School, USA: 28 stories

Thank so much to all who took part!

Our new Star Writing challenge involves writing a rhyming poem about school. You can find out more here: http://www.nightzookeeper.com/edu/star-writing

[nightzooteacher]

World Creative Writing Month is back!

We are excited to be hosting the fourth annual World Creative Writing Month March 1st to 23rd and this year the competition is set to be bigger and better than ever. Read on to find out more and discover what’s new for 2018...

What is World Creative Writing Month?

World Creative Writing Month is a global writing competition that invites classrooms from around the world to write as many stories as they can from March 1st to 23rd.

The competition is completely free to enter. Last year schools from 30 different countries joined forces to write over 6 million words on Night Zookeeper. The winning class from St Colman’s BNS in Ireland collectively wrote over 430,000 words!

All writing written by students on nightzookeeper.com and published by you on the site during the competition counts towards your final score. Your students can watch your team’s progress on the leader board and check the collective global word count on the ticker.

Download the Teacher Manual for more detailed information and offline resources for your class: https://www.dropbox.com/s/aiz3mjk2ppha8oc/wcwm18-manual.pdf?dl=0

How to take part

New teachers simply need to register for an account

Teachers who have already subscribed to Night Zookeeper are automatically entered in the competition, so do not need to register

If you have used Night Zookeeper in the past and would like to get involved in the competition, please email [email protected]

How is this year’s competition different?

For the first time, we are launching an exciting calendar of mini-challenges during the competition! These challenges will help motivate and reward your students for individual pieces of writing and also help develop skills in particular areas. The mini-challenges will be announced at the end of February, so stay tuned!

What is Night Zookeeper?

The competition takes place on nightzookeeper.com, which inspires and engages children, using creativity to nurture a love of writing. It is proven to raise the attainment levels of all students as they complete fun, interactive lessons from across the curriculum.

When teachers register on nightzookeeper.com, they can create their own digital lessons to send to their students. They do this using our online editor, which includes interactive modules for drawing, writing and quiz activities. Importantly, these lessons can be adapted to teach any subject, theme or topic and are linked to every curriculum around the world.

Once lessons are completed by students, their work is automatically sent back to their teacher for assessment. This means that all student progress is saved, and can be monitored and used to inform future lesson planning. And of course, their words count towards their team’s total!

Therefore, everything your students produce on the website will count towards their success during the competition starting March 1st 2018.

Sign up and get writing now: https://www.nightzookeeper.com/world-creative-writing-month

Learn more about the competition here.

[nightzooteacher]

Welcome back, Southern Hemisphere teachers

We hope that you had a fantastic summer break and are returning to school well rested and ready to take on the term ahead!

We’ve created a special Night Zookeeper ‘Back to School’ lesson for your students. In it, they will reflect on their summer and set themselves three academic goals for 2018. Click here for the lesson.

You may also be interested in our calendar of events, to see the resources and activities we’re providing throughout 2018...

A Year with Night Zookeeper

February: Literacy Month with Skype in the Classroom

We have partnered up with Skype in the Classroom to celebrate Literacy Month during February, to deliver special Skype lessons to classrooms globally. Find out more and access a special Writing Sparks offline resource here. 

March: World Creative Writing Month 2018

Classrooms from all around the world will be competing to produce their best writing in March, with some fantastic prizes up for grabs. This year, we are making the competition even more exciting by releasing special challenges or rewards on certain days throughout the month! Check out WCWM 2017 here 

May: The Night Zoo Mayoral Elections

Learn about persuasive writing, politics and more in this fun event that will capture the imagination of your whole school. Children love inventing their own mayoral candidate for the Night Zoo. They will write manifestos and vote in a global election!

July: Orblympics

We have developed a writing decathlon, which challenges students to take part in a range of challenges throughout the month.

September: September of Skills

We will be providing a series of lessons and offline resources based around popular writing skills to master, such as punctuation and using pronouns and adverbials.

October: Halloween

Join us for Halloween and access a range of spooky lessons to get students excited about writing at this time of year!

November: The International Writing Cup

Your class can compete to be the number 1 writing team in the world. They will aim to write their best reports, stories, poems etc throughout this month in order to find their way into the International Writing Cup final.

December: Special Christmas resources and activities

We will provide you with Night Zookeeper themed Christmas activities in the lead up to the holiday season. We will also give students additional challenges to keep them writing at home during the holidays.

If you need any help at all in preparing your Night Zookeeper account for this upcoming school year, then please email me on [email protected]

If you’re not already a member of the Night Zookeeper community, but you like the sound of the above, then you can sign up at nightzookeeper.com.

Very best wishes,

Night Zookeeper Paul

[nightzooteacher]

New Features for 2017/2018

We've been very busy this summer, creating lots of new features for you to use with your class during this new school year! 

Firstly, we're about to launch a brand new writing inspiration tool called 'Writing Sparks'. This feature generates random creative writing prompts for your students. All you need to do is select a writing type and a time period, then the tool will provide inspiration as the basis for short writing assignments. We believe this tool will be perfect to supplement the fun creative writing challenges on nightzookeeper.com, whilst being great for group writing activities when students arrive at school in the morning. 

Writing Performance Data Secondly, we're implementing a system to automatically analyse student writing and provide you with performance data. This will specifically give you results in the following areas:

1. Spelling accuracy - analysis of all words written whilst using the website. 2. Vocabulary size - number of unique words used by a student. 3.  Grammar score - an analysis of the sentence structure and punctuation of students whilst they are using the website. 4. Quiz scores - this will analyse the total number of quiz questions that students have completed through lesson hive and give them an overall score. Our hope is that this data will inform your teaching and help you to better understand where the learning gaps are in your class. If your students use nightzookeeper.com regularly, we'll then be able to provide you with more accurate data throughout the year and within an end of year report.  

Brand new writing tool Alongside the 'Writing Sparks' feature and data analysis system, we've built a brand new writing tool. This will provide inspiration within an editable planning tool, which students and teachers can customise completely. This should be live everywhere on the website within the next four weeks. 

A New School Year If you're getting ready to begin a new school year, then here's a helpful video that will ensure that you have your Night Zookeeper account set up and ready to go! 

If you need any help at all in preparing your Night Zookeeper account for this upcoming school year, then please email me on [email protected]

If you’re not already a member of the Night Zookeeper community, but you like the sound of the above, then you can sign up at nightzookeeper.com. 

Very best wishes,

Night Zookeeper Paul

Tweet us: @nightzookeeper 

Like us on Facebook

[nightzooteacher]

Picture News - Partnership

We’re excited to announce our new partnership with Picture News!

Each week, the Picture News team choose a current news story, turning it into a vibrant A2 poster along with thought provoking questions. Inspired by this, they create an assembly plan which focuses on teaching British Values to Key Stage 1 & 2 students.

As part of the partnership, Picture News will be providing Night Zookeeper with regular content that we’ll transform into interactive lessons. These will then be added to this growing collection of lessons which, you can browse and send out to your students whenever you like. 

If you sign up for a Picture News account, then you will also receive regular special Night Zookeeper newspaper articles, that are perfect for shared reading sessions alongside your students. 

You can find out more and sign up to Picture News on their website: www.picture-news.co.uk.

[nightzooteacher]

New Feature: Battle Lock

We’ve just launched a new feature to help teachers ensure that students are completing all of their Lesson Hive activities before they battle the evil monsters of Nulth. 

If you’re a Night Zoo Teacher, then you will find this new feature towards the bottom of the homepage, just under our ‘Challenge another class’ tool. 

You’re able to select from 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week and can cancel the battle lock at any time. 

Whilst students are in lock mode, they will receive messages from our characters informing them how long they must wait until their next battle game. We also prompt them to complete lessons and challenges in the meantime. 

Log in to your Night Zookeeper account to give it a try. 

We do hope this adds to your Night Zookeeper user experience. We’re always striving to improve the website, so do let us know if you have ideas for any other new features to add. 

Best wishes,

Night Zookeeper Paul

[email protected]

[nightzooteacher]

What is World Creative Writing Month?

In March, we will host the third annual World Creative Writing Month. This is a global writing competition that invites classrooms of children from around the world to write as many stories as they can. It features a Blue Peter style totaliser where children can watch the number of words tick up!

Last year children wrote 7 million published words in March and the winning class from Harrow International School in Beijing, collectively wrote 300,000 words.

Learn more about the competition here.

What is Night Zookeeper?

The competition takes place on nightzookeeper.com, which inspires and engages children, using creativity to nurture a love of writing. It is proven to raise the attainment levels of all students as they complete fun, interactive lessons from across the curriculum.

When teachers register on nightzookeeper.com, they can create their own digital lessons to send to their students. They do this using our online editor, which includes interactive modules for drawing, writing and quiz activities. Importantly, these lessons can be adapted to teach any subject, theme or topic and are linked to every curriculum around the world.

Once lessons are completed by students, their work is automatically sent back to their teacher for assessment. This means that all student progress is saved, and can be monitored and used to inform future lesson planning. And of course, their words count towards their team’s total!

Therefore, everything your students produce on the website will count towards their success during the competition starting March 1st 2017. 

Sign up and get writing now: https://www.nightzookeeper.com/world-creative-writing-month

[nightzooteacher]

New Feature Launches!

Lesson Hive is a brand new resource library for teacher created lesson plans and digital classroom activities.

Alongside teachers, we have created interactive lessons on a variety of subjects and topics, and you can easily customize and send them to your students.

This video explains all in 60 seconds

The lessons can be completed in school or set as homework, as part of a flipped learning strategy.

All of the work produce during a lesson is automatically saved in your own teacher account. Once there, you can assess it, leave comments, publish it to a free blog and share it with parents.

Please feel free to browse our catalogue of lessons. If we don’t have what you are looking for, please do let us know and we’ll aim to create it for you as soon as possible.

Register on nightzookeeper.com now to give it a try! 

If you’re an existing Night Zoo Teacher, then you can visit Lesson Hive here

Contact [email protected] if you have any questions about this new feature and special offer! 

[nightzooteacher]

BETT 2017

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[nightzooteacher]

Story Relay 2017

Starting on 17th January, Night Zookeeper’s Story Relay will be passed around the globe. Students will scribe the adventures of Grudge the bear and Florence Flamingo, as they attempt to save the Night Zoo from the mysterious ‘Hunters’.

The rules are simple:

1. Send the weekly lesson and chapter to your students.

2. Ask them to read the current chapter and write the following one.

3. Publish entries and nominate the best writing using your teacher account.

4. We will then select the winner and create another lesson for the following week. These will be emailed directly to you. 

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The story that will take shape over the following month is called ‘Grudge, Florence & the Hunters’. You can read the prologue to the story below...

Prologue - By Night Zookeeper Josh It was many years before the Night Zookeeper was even born that the armies of Nulth first attacked the Night Zoo. Evil animals, carrying weapons made from Nulth metals, would raid the zoo, searching for kindly animals to kidnap and take back with them into the dark lands. The evil animals were known as Hunters and their numbers were growing. No one knows what they did to the animals they took, but most would return as Hunters themselves!

In this hour of need, The Time-Travelling Elephant called on the help of two heroes to save the Night Zoo from the Hunters. One was a big powerful bear called Grudge and the other was a flamingo with healing feathers called Florence. Florence set-up a hospital on the borders of the zoo to care for injured animals, whilst Grudge raised an army to march on the Hunters. In the chaos that followed, something amazing happened. The bear and the flamingo fell in love. The story that follows tells of how this miraculous love came about and how it ultimately saved the Night Zoo. 

More to come….

How can I take part with my class?

If you’re not yet registered on nightzookeeper.com, but would like to take part, then simply sign up for a free account here and then send the first lesson to your students. 

Click here to view and send the first lesson. 

If you’re already registered on Night Zookeeper, then simply send out the first lesson and invite your students to get writing!   

When does it start?

Monday 17th January 2017

When does it finish?

Friday 3rd March 2017

How can I follow the story?

The story will be updated regularly on this page, plus you can follow at #StoryRelay17 on Twitter.

If you have any other questions about this initiative, then please do email them to [email protected].

Find out more about our work to engage young writers on nightzookeeper.com

[nightzooteacher]

Night Zookeeper in the US

I have very exciting news! I am beginning to plan another US Tour for November 2016. 

Watch this video we made to document last year's workshops.

The workshops typically involve the following activities:

Storytelling assemblies with the Night Zookeeper himself

Virtual Reality writing inspiration workshops

Computing workshops on nightzookeeper.com

Inspirational writing workshops

Creative thinking Animal Aerobics sessions

Training on the new Lesson Hive and Assessment systems

Shared reading sessions of the first Night Zookeeper story book (we’ll be bring some with us, so that the kids can take a signed copy home)

A review from by Mrs Barnett, Bannockburn School, Chicago, 2015 

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the day students will know how to:

compose writing on nightzookeeper.com

comment on and assess writing from their peers

use their creativity to invent unique characters and stories

respond to teacher feedback and improve their writing

At the end of the day teachers will know how to:

assess and comment on student writing

set up a class blog and begin publishing to it

create and send bespoke writing missions to their class

connect with schools and teachers around the world

We will also be providing training on all of our new Lesson Hive features, including how to create and send a live interactive lesson. 

Confirmed locations so far: 

Missouri & Kansas

Nov 1st - Available

Nov 2nd - Available 

Nov 3rd - Available

Nov 4th - Cottonwood Elementary

Nov 7th - Peculiar Elementary

Indiana

Nov 9th - Hoosier Road Elementary 

Nov 10th - Fishers Elementary

Nov 11th - New Britton

Nov 14th - Brooks School

Nov 15th - Geist Elementary

Nov 16th - Sand Creek Elementary 

Nov 17th - Cumberland Road Elementary 

Nov 18th - Thorpe Creek

Illinois

Nov 28th - Wilmot Elementary 

Nov 29th - Memorial Elementary 

Nov 30th - Available

Dec 1st - Available 

We are always happy to branch out and extend the trip to your area!

If you're interested in taking part, drop me an email ([email protected]) and I will send across more info!

Best wishes, Night Zookeeper Paul

[nightzooteacher]

What’s new this year on Night Zookeeper?

It’s getting close to a new school year and we’re gearing up for the most exciting 12 months ever in the Night Zoo! 

We’re very excited about the year ahead and have loads for you and your class to get involved in! 

Back to school resources

Large characters for Night Zookeeper display boards

Sketch book cover designs

Team and individual labels

Golden rules activity

This year’s goals... A letter to your teacher

Magical Animal ID Card activity

New features

Brand new Lesson Creator tool

Lesson Hive library (covering a range of subjects, including Maths, Science, History, Art, Geography and much more...)

Student Lesson Hive and Lesson Quest mode

Assessment

We are updating our assessment system this year, which will involve all new class progress charts, so that you can compare groups of students, plus individual automatic assessment of the lessons you send to your class. 

Competitions

Character Creation Competition - September 2016 

International Writing Cup - November 2016

World Creative Writing Month - March 2017

Weekly activities 

Star Writing challenges - these are continuing into  2017, but will steadily be transferred to ‘Star Lessons’ as we create additional learning content for students to work through before completing the writing challenge.

School Tours

US Tour - November 2016: We had such an amazing time touring the states last year, that we have decided to do it all again. We will be taking bookings for our annual US tour, so do get in touch on [email protected] if you’re interested in taking part. 

UK Tour - Ongoing 2016/17: We have already received bookings for a number of schools in the UK this year. We are always very happy to visit your school and deliver our creative writing workshops!

Special themes

Spooky Halloween stories, lessons and resources 

Christmas lessons and resources

World Book Day activities

Plus much more... 

If you would like us to create specific resources and lessons for a theme you will be working on, then do send us an email. We’re always happy to help!

Brand New Characters

We’re delighted to announce that by the time your students get into full flow this year, there will be a host of new official characters for them to find on nightzookeeper.com. Including our new friends Ant (seen below), Bertie the Bumbling Bee and the Parachuting Lions. 

The team are so excited to work with you all again this year! If you had a class previously on Night Zookeeper, please refer to this blog post about how to archive your group and create a new class full of students.

If you are new to Night Zookeeper, then you can register a free account here: https://edu.nightzookeeper.com/teacher/register

Enjoy the remainder of your holidays and see you all soon!

Night Zookeeper Paul

[nightzooteacher]

Renewing student accounts

Dear Night Zoo Teachers,

We hope you are enjoying a wonderful summer with your family and friends! Work continues apace here in the Night Zoo as we develop brand new features for you to use with your students next year. These include our interactive lesson creator tool, plus a teaching community packed full of lessons created by your colleagues. We’re very excited to welcome you all back for a new school year in August/September 2016!

So, what happens with your student accounts from last year?

Lots of teachers have asked us what they should do with their accounts from last year, as students move from one classroom to another. There are actually a couple of ways to deal with the hand over, as outlined below...

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Option 1: Archive your class from last year

If your class groups are going to be very different next year, then you can click on 'archive class' at the bottom of your settings page in your account.

This will then generate a new class code, which you can use to create a completely new group of students next term using the usual student registration process. 

You will find your class code constantly displayed in yellow at the top of your teacher account. 

PLEASE NOTE: Students will HAVE to create a new username for the new year. Their old one will still be in the database, so can’t be duplicated. Thank you! 

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Option 2: Your class groups remain the same, but go to another teacher

If all students are remaining in the same class group, then you can simply change the teacher email and password through the settings in your account. 

Click on the settings button at the top right of your account.

Then scroll down to the email and password boxes, to change these over to the teacher’s details that will be receiving the students next year. 

PLEASE NOTE: If the teacher inheriting the class already has a Night Zookeeper account, then they will need to use an alternative email address. This could be a personal account or they could add an extension to their email address such as:

[email protected]

Don’t forget to click the green tick to save your changes! 

If there is a teacher at school that is inheriting a non-night zoo class, then they can simply create new accounts as normal from here.

I hope this has been helpful. If you have any further questions about the best option for your situation then please don’t hesitate to email [email protected]

[nightzooteacher]

Aussie Authors and New Zealand Writes!

This August, we are challenging the whole of Australia to write one million words. We’re also challenging the whole of New Zealand to do the same! We want to see who gets there first!

Click here to join Aussie Authors!

Click here to join New Zealand Writes!

What do these competitions entail?

Aussie Authors and New Zealand Writes are two writing competitions that we’ll be running simultaneously to see which country can write the most words in a month. Primary school students will write using the Night Zookeeper website to create pieces of work across a range of writing styles.

As well as the two countries competing against each other, each class will have the opportunity to go for individual writing glory! When taking part in the competition, your class will be able to see a league table of all the classes involved, so they can see how well they’re doing in comparison to everyone else. They will also be able to read and comment on work created by all of the other classes in the competition.

Taking part in a writing competition is a great way to be a part of a learning community and to inspire children to write through competition.

Click here to find out more about Aussie Authors!

Click here to find out more about New Zealand Writes!

What do I get?

Throughout August, we will be offering every school in New Zealand and Australia completely free access to Night Zookeeper. We want as many schools as possible to get involved with the competitions to make them as exciting as we can! If you know a teacher who you think might be interested in taking part, please let them know.

When do the competitions take place?

Both competitions will run for the whole of August, ending on the 31st. Make sure you sign up before the 1st August!

Join Aussie Authors

Join New Zealand Writes

How do I sign up for Night Zookeeper?

All you need to do is visit this page and register a free account. You can then watch the following videos, which explain the website and how it works...

Night Zookeeper Overview

Registering Students

Full Guided Tour

If you have any questions about the competitions or our website, please email [email protected]

You can also reach us on Twitter @nightzookeeper