This is a PowerPoint game consisting of over 100 slides. It’s great for starting a lesson - played as a whole class vocabulary challenge. Good for plenaries too and as an occasional filler activity for any subject. The teacher selects the initial category from the first slide without letting pupils see it. The go button on the on screen timer starts the clock, and a word is displayed. Pupils have a minute as the clock ticks to write as many words associated with the on screen word as they can. At the end of the minute, the word disappears, an alarm rings, and a link arrow to the next category appears at the bottom of the screen. Alternatively, the resource could be used as a speaking activity on the lines of the Radio 4 Quiz show: pupils have one minute to talk (without hesitation, deviation etc) on the topic displayed. It generates a lot of excitement in the classroom! Good for adults too!

These four texts are retellings in modern English of traditional Chinese folk tales. One - the story of the Nian - is specifically about the origins of Chinese New Year traditions. The other three could be used at any time of the year. These have several common themes (money, religion, magic, kindness, and more which could be suggested by pupils themselves), and would make a good starting point for textual comparison or cross-curricular work (eg RE, citizenship). The texts all come with a set of 10 questions which could be used for discussion in assembly, or for formal written comprehension in the classroom. The folk tale format makes the texts accessible to a wide age range, including KS1, whereas the themes broached in many of the questions make them more suitable for able KS2 or KS3 classes.

A good resource for KS2 for the period from October to New Year. The non-fiction text is about the problems caused by fireworks in the period lasting from just before Hallowe’en to just after New Year. It is accompanied by a 20 mark comprehension exercise with a mark sheet. The text would make an excellent starting point for class debate, and for a writing assignment on balance argument or persuasive writing. The 15 slide PowerPoint is on capital letters and covers 14 cases when they should be used. It is accompanied by an extract from the reading text which has been stripped of all capital letters.

This is a customisable resource for English designed to get the creative juices flowing. A list of random words (choice of 2 - 5) is generated and pupils are challenged to come up with ways of including all of them in a piece of collaborative writing. As the class comes up with ideas, the teacher records them by typing on the onscreen board. The work can be saved at the end of the session. If pupils are not used to this kind of exercise, I suggest beginning with the 2 word sentence option. Challenge them to make sentences that make links between the words. You can move on to the other options in the menu as they become more confident… Although designed for use in English classes, this resource can easily be adapted for other subjects and for whole school sessions like assemblies. It is great for CPD too (safeguarding training, for instance). The PowerPoint file is stored in a folder with a text file named ‘words’. By replacing the words on this list by your own, the words generated on the screen can be related to any topic you like. Make sure that you keep the text file and the PowerPoint file together, however, or the nothing work. I have included a separate folder with three extra word lists (summer, adjectives, and synonyms for ‘said’). If you decide to use them, you need to rename them as ‘words’ and swap them with the original file in the main folder. You need to enable macros on your computer to use the resource, otherwise nothing will happen!

A 15 slide presentation in both PowerPoint and PDF format which could be used either for an assembly or for an introduction to a lesson or project on Louis Braille. It is accompanied by a comprehension exercise with 10 questions (20 marks) along with a mark scheme. Content and language appropriate for upper KS2 and above.