Busy Things
Very rarely do I write a post about a commercial piece of software. But Busythings is no ordinary piece of software. For an annual subscription you get access to a range of activities matched with the foundation stage areas of leaning. This comprises of several standalone packages that Q&D have put together in one lovely online bundle of joy, accessible from home as well as school. The great thing for me is that whilst targetted very well at Early Years, as a year 1 teacher it brilliantly supports basic skills such as phase 3 phonics that some of my learners are not yet secure with.
A package like Busythings lives and dies by the quality of it’s content. And it does not disappoint. Lively characters, engaging graphics and sound and a structure that clearly comes from good practice within the classroom creates an engaging and fun way for children to learn.
We have used Busythings consistently since the start of the year and together with Zondle, these two packages are helping support personalised learning and also give clear support to learners.
The control you have over setting exactly what you want your learners to engage in is fantastic. In the above screenshot all you do is click the phoneme/graphemes you want your children to learn up to and the software does the rest.
Another great feature is the ability to create your own resources linked to letters and sounds.
It is also important to mention Q&D’s excellent customer support. I explained a month or two ago that we were planning on investing in android tablets to use Busythings with and as the tablet technology was new I had found a couple of issues when using Busythings with it. They are now in the process of making it completely android tablet friendly 
If your school are looking for a package that believes in the foundation stage ethos of each area of learning having equal weight (to be fair the four areas covered in Busythings are Creative Development, Knowledge and Understanding About the World, Problem Solving Reasoning and Numeracy and Communication, Language and Literacy) or if you are in KS1 and you have learners that clearly need additional early skills support, Busythings is definitely worth investigating.
