I use this in year 5 and year 6 - I'm sure it could be useful for ages 7-14. I can understand the meaning of ‘addition’ words and ‘cause and effect’ words I can develop an argument using ‘addition’ or ‘cause and effect’ Explanation When children try to add a further point to an argument they often get confused between two key language functions: • ‘addition’ - adding a further related point (also, in addition to, furthermore, moreover…); • ‘cause and effect’ - explaining the effect of the previous point (therefore, consequently, as a result of, because of this…). This can result in children making points that are nonsensical: Mobile phones make children safer because they can contact their parents in the event of an emergency. Consequently, children can contact online safety websites and get useful advice about online bullying. Here we see that a misunderstanding of the adverb ‘consequently’ has weakened the argument. An ‘addition’ adverb such as ‘furthermore’ would make a lot more sense. The same problem can occur in reverse. Text messaging during lessons is a distraction. In addition to this, children secretly sending text messages will fall behind their classmates. In this passage, the second point is a consequence of the first and not an additional argument. A cause and effect adverb such as ‘therefore’ would make much more sense. Use the activity "Addition or cause and effect?" to help children understand how to develop a point without confusing the reader.

If you are reading Goodnight Mr. Tom here are three very short drama activities for children to try in pairs. They could be used just to help children engage with the story. I asked children to use these three short pieces of drama to support them in writing a diary entry and they produced some wonderful writing. If you like this creative and active approach to teaching, you will love my pack of 40 grammar games - available to buy in my TES shop. Hope they are of use to someone out there in teacherland. If you use it, please review it! *2200 downloads…2 reviews

I have edited the National Curriculum into a word document that just shows the grammar content to be introduced in each year group (and the glossary). I find this useful for staff training purposes - hope you find it useful too.

Hi teachers of the world! I love using Roger Mcgough’s fantastic ‘What I love about school’ to motivate pupils to write poetry with patterns. I’ve used it several times, and the children often come up with brilliant poems of their own, once they have had time explore the patterns. A shortened version of the poem, some comprehension activities and planning sheet are included. Have fun! If you like this activity, you may like my grammar games and units of work.

27 ways to for KS2 writers to edit and improve their own writing. This project was written by Fiona Keeling and Maurice Leahy and has been loosely inspired by Brighton Train Station (bear with us). We put it together to help children develop writing further at the editing stage. The PowerPoint explains how it works, but we are sure you’ll find your own ways to use this. Fiona brings it to life in her classroom with a cap, whistle and realistic train tickets! It was a lot of work, so if you spot the odd error, please let us know and we will put it right. We hope it saves you some precious time. Please leave a review. Happy editing!

This activity has also been developed into ‘First Week Back Poetry’, a fully resourced one week unit (PowerPoints, plans, activities). It is available from my shop. Please follow this link https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/resource-12907781 Upper KS2 poetry activity: ‘What I DIDN’T do over the summer!’ We didn’t all go on amazing holidays over the summer, but there are amazing things in front of our noses. Try this poetry activity with upper KS2 children. If you use this - and I saved you some time - please leave a review in return.

Six poetry lessons for upper KS2 with a focus on performance and creative writing. All plans and resources included - everything you need is here. All work is produced using Word and Powerpoint, so edit as you wish. Most of all… enjoy. This is a fun unit! Overview of unit Session 1 Explore tricky vocabulary I can explore the meaning of words Session 2 Read, discuss, perform I can bring a poem to life using my voice **Session 3 Explore, map, recite ** I can visualise a poem and recite it from memory Session 4 Comprehension I can explain the meaning of words in context I can find information in poetry I can justify inferences with evidence Session 5 Create poetry I can write a free verse poem using a familiar theme and structure Session 6 Peer edit for impact + perform I can choose verbs and nouns phrases to create imagery I can perform my own composition fluently

Put your children in pairs to play the fun spelling game ‘VictoriOUS’. It’s a two player dice game that enables children to learn these four rules for adding the suffix ‘ous’: Some root word do not change – just add ‘ous’ For many root words that end in e, take off the ‘e’ and add ‘ous’ If the root word ends ‘-ge’, keep the ‘e’ and add ‘ous’ Change the ‘y’ to an ‘i’ and add ‘ous’ How about words that can’t have the ‘ous’ suffix? Peer assessment is built in. Everything that you need is here - just add 1-6 dice!

Two model information texts (one about Celts and one about Romans) for use in KS2

Here is a fun 2 player dice game to liven-up exploring silent letters. There is also a PowerPoint with plenty of activities and questions to get the session started. There is an extension task for speedy players who finish games quickly.

Use this to develop children’s understanding of clauses, and to encourage children to vary the number of clauses they include within their sentences. Assessment focus I can understand the terms ‘clause’ and ‘conjunction’. I can say sentences with one or more clauses. I can write sentences with many clauses, without confusing the reader. This activity promotes lots of talk around word classes and building multi-clause sentences.

Dice game! Warm up! Presentation! Missing dashes activity! I’ve probably spent too much time thinking about how to teach young writers to understand dashes and to use them creatively. The end result is a dice activity which teaches children six simple ways of using dashes effectively. Children who take part in this writing activity will learn six different (and fool proof!) ways of dropping in extra thoughts and ideas between dashes. It is surprising the depth this can add to fiction writing. *As well as the dice activity, I have also included a 15 slide PowerPoint. This explains how dashes can be used, and it has extension activities. *I have also included a warm up activity that always leads to some useful discussion. *I have also included a ‘add the missing dashes’ activity Teachers, if you swap the sentences in this activity to match your own writing projects, children can generate superb sentences to add to their own compositions.

‘Noun or Not?’ is a two player dice game aimed at Key Stage 2 children. It has an interesting wildlife theme and built in peer assessment, so pupils can correct each other as they go along. There are 6 ‘going deeper’ activities involving plenty of challenge. I’m sure your class will love this way of looking at nouns - BETTER THAN A WORKSHEET!

Assessment focus: I can write a sentence that makes sense by itself Children explore sentences that make sense and sentences that do not. They fix sentences and write them correctly. The main activity is differentiated 3 ways. Included: Lesson plan Warm up Activity differentiated 3 ways

Contractions come up in Year 2, but I have made these resources for KS2, as children still need to practise accurate use of apostrophes. Included are two engaing dice games (‘Contraction Creator’ and ‘The Memory Test’). Both are far more memorable and fun than dull worksheets. There is also a support activity and a presentation. Enjoy!

Excellent grammar session! Fully differentiated! Including ‘support’ and ‘going deeper’ activities and a detailed PowerPoint to use in class. Available as word and PDF docs. Assessment focus I can identify nouns and verbs When I classify (group) a word, I think about the job it is doing in the sentence Explanation We spend a lot of time telling children that nouns are ‘people, places, things and ideas’ and verbs are ‘actions or states of being’. These are useful starting points for younger learners, but there is a little more it… If you ask children to classify ‘walk’, ‘laugh’, ‘object’ and ‘book’, they will likely tell you that the first two are verbs and the second two are nouns. Understandable! In fact, these words can be nouns or verbs, and there are many similar examples. Therefore, when children are classifying a word, we need to encourage them to look at the function of the word within its sentence. The walk was long and tiring. (Noun) I walk to school. (Verb) This two player dice game, aimed at upper KS2, gives pupils lots of opportunities to identify nouns and verbs. More than that, they also explore the function of words that can be used as nouns and verbs. Children have to look at the whole sentence before classifying a word. It has built in peer assessment, so there is NO MARKING REQUIRED! Pupils assess each other’s answers as the game progresses: player A has player B’s answers and vice versa. Lots of opportunities for pupil talk! It’s an engaging way to get pupils talking about the function of words and is much richer than a simple worksheet.

There are lots of resources already available for expanded noun phrases, but none that really challenge children to develop their vocabulary and make really adventurous or precise choices. This dice activity encourages children to try out new word choices from extensive word banks, and it is fully differentiated into three versions. In its simplest form, children add adjectives and pairs of adjectives to noun phrases. In its most challenging form, children may have to add two compound adjectives and a preposition phrase - this can result in some wonderfully descriptive sentences. It all depends on the roll of a dice. Of course, teachers that love using my games will have guessed that already! Try it with your class and then ask them to apply the skill in their next composition. Fully editable so that you can easily adapt it to the unit you are working on by changing the single clause sentences that the children will be developing. *The main version here works well with myth, legend and adventure, but I have added a sci-fi version to show how it can be adapted for use with any fiction.