A bonafide Science Teacher (of 13 years), and Head of Year, from Gloucestershire offering tried and tested resources to save you the time and energy when planning. There's no point reinventing the wheel!
Watch out for new resources to help you meet the demands of teaching the Science GCSE and Chemistry A-Level.
A bonafide Science Teacher (of 13 years), and Head of Year, from Gloucestershire offering tried and tested resources to save you the time and energy when planning. There's no point reinventing the wheel!
Watch out for new resources to help you meet the demands of teaching the Science GCSE and Chemistry A-Level.
A simple but great worksheet to get them thinking and discussing. A variety of ‘odd one out’ type questions, some with some requirement for an extended explanation. Students need to use their classification skills to decide which the ‘Odd one out’ is. This will assess students on their understanding of…
vertebrate groups
invertebrate groups
arthropod groups
Question sheet is editable but ready to print. Answer sheet is in the same document to save you doing any thinking!
Though about reindeer and the Christmas ‘feel’, this activity can be done at any time of the year (ie whenever you’re teaching genetics!) or could be unleashed as a stand alone Christmas end of term type activity. It could also be sent home as a project too.
All instructions are on the sheet and students have free reign to be as creative as they like. The thing I find when teaching selective breeding is the misconception that it’s as easy as A + B = perfect C and students forget that the process is lengthy as many rounds of breeding need to be done to iron out the unwanted features etc. As a result, I’ve popped in a little extension question at the end to get them thinking!
Though aimed at KS3 this could easily be used for lower ability KS4.
Exams or Mocks just about to happen? Or maybe you are just tired of going over the same old Chemistry facts, time after time after time… Or perhaps you are being uber organised and sorting a place for your Chemistry students to record the ‘recall’ knowledge as they learn about it. Whatever the reason, this is a very handy resource to have…
This worksheet provides an excellent revision resource (made last week at the request of my Year 11s!) or would happily provide an ongoing resource which could be added to or built upon as the course progresses (this is how I’ll be using it next year…). The worksheet contains a template summary of all those Chemistry facts (recall) that need to be learnt before the exam.
ion charges
gas tests
electrolysis product rules
solubility rules
… and loads more.
I’ve also saved you the time of working out answers and created an answer sheet to boot!
This lovely resource allows students to present details on the menstrual cycle in a creative and visual way. It is a blank calendar for the month of February (28 days = perfect!) with a diagram of the cycle and the key events which take place plus an incomplete, colour coded key. Students task is to research, find out information to complete the empty boxes under the calendar and describe the main stages of the cycle. This can then be colour coded on to the calendar with colouring pencils. The task can be extended to challenge students to research what is occurring in terms of hormone activity too!
A cut and stick or match 'em up type activity to assess recall of simple chemical reactions content.
common gas tests
reactant and products
the fire triangle
word equations
A great knowledge organiser all boiled down to one sheet.
My revision methods are quite simple in my lessons - SPEC IT, REVISE IT, TEST IT. If students know EXACTLY WHAT they need to revise (using the specification checklist) it makes for smarter revision. If they can TEST THEMSELVES to measure their understanding - even better!
This resource is a comprehensive but concise knowledge organiser covering…
transition metals and their properties
tarnish and oxidation of metals
corrosion
rusting of iron and steel
ways to reduce corrosion and oxidation
pure metals vs alloyed metals (the good old stock answer “layers slide etc etc”)
This knowledge organiser has been made against the Edexcel specification but would easily be applicable to others. Each revision point has been written in accordance with the specification section to help students translate the specification points. The Knowledge Organiser is applicable to students sitting standard or higher tier papers.
SPEC IT, REVISE IT, TEST IT. If students know EXACTLY WHAT they need to revise (using the specification checklist) it makes for smarter revision. If they can TEST THEMSELVES to measure their understanding - even better!
This resource is a comprehensive but concise knowledge organiser covering Heat Energy Changes in Chemical Reactions (including bond energy calculations/ exothermic vs endothermic and energy profiles - I’ve also included my nifty way of helping students remember the difference between making and breaking bonds in terms of their exothermic and endothermic properties!).
This knowledge organiser has been made against the Edexcel specification but would easily be applicable to others. The Knowledge Organiser is applicable to students sitting standard or higher tier papers (studying Separate or Combined Science routes).
Each revision point has been written as a typical ‘stock exam answer’ and cuts out all the waffle.
A great knowledge organiser all boiled down to one sheet.
My revision methods are quite simple in my lessons - SPEC IT, REVISE IT, TEST IT. If students know EXACTLY WHAT they need to revise (using the specification checklist) it makes for smarter revision. If they can TEST THEMSELVES to measure their understanding - even better!
This resource is a comprehensive but concise knowledge organiser covering the tough put essential Chemistry Calculations plus some great examples of model calculation answers. This knowledge organiser has been made against the Edexcel specification but would easily be applicable to others. Each revision point has been written in accordance with the specification section to help students translate the specification points. The Knowledge Organiser is applicable to students sitting standard or higher tier papers.
Calculations included are…
calculating concentrations (in g/dm3 and mol/dm3)
calculating unknown concentrations using titration data
gas volume calculations starting with mass of a reactant
gas molar volume ratios
Who? For those teaching the new Chemistry/ Combined Science GCSE (2016). Also for those of you requiring a clear and simple worksheet to allow students to practice how to calculate masses and number of moles.
What? This worksheet requires students to calculate the mass of 1 mole of a substance plus to calculate the number of moles in a substance of given mass. This sheet is scaffolded to support the development of the ‘moles’ idea and includes the brilliant moles equation triangle to support later/more challenging questions.
Students will need a periodic table. You just need to print the sheet! I’ve even included answers for all questions so you really do not have to do anything!
A simple 'match ‘em up’ activity to sort/match the name of the reproductive organ with it’s function. These are not in order so could be printed off and handed out straight away. If time is limited this would make a good colour code activity rather than ‘cut and stick’.
A great knowledge organiser all boiled down to one sheet.
If students know EXACTLY WHAT they need to revise (using the specification checklist) it makes for smarter revision. If they can TEST THEMSELVES to measure their understanding - even better!
This resource is a comprehensive but concise knowledge organiser covering…
common formula
ionic formula to learn (simple and compound)
word equations
balanced equation writing
ionic equation writing
hazard symbols and precautions to reduce risk.
Who? For those teaching Key Stage 3 Microbes and Disease (although could be used as a potential starter for KS4) specifically 'Natural Defences against disease'.
What? This is a diamond 9 activity which has the potential to allow for some deeper discussion about the natural methods of defence against disease. It will force students to consider which are most important as they begin to rank them. You can them challenge them with the 'what if' questions? "Well, what if you lack the platelet in your blood which causes scabs?". Lovely activity to really get them thinking. I love these activities because there are no 'right and wrong' answers.
Who? For those teaching the new Chemistry/ Combined Science GCSE (2016). Also for those of you requiring a clear and simple worksheet for your students to begin to independently derive simple ionic formulae. This activity will build confidence and reinforce understanding that charges must balance when creating ionic compounds.
What? This worksheet requires students to theoretically bond positive and negative ions together to generate simple formulae. (There is scope to extend this activity and introduce multi-element ions (there is one example in this activity with the OH ion). A selection of possible answers are provided on the second sheet of the resource.
Who? For those who are teaching GCSE Physics ‘Motion’, specifically ‘Stopping Distances’. This is a card sort for students to decide which factors fall into the ‘thinking distance’ pile and which the ‘braking distance’ pile.
What? This is a grid of different factors which students may discuss and decide whether they affect the thinking or braking (or both) distance of a vehicle. There will be plenty of opportunity to debate which are worse. This activity is flexible enough to become a ‘diamond 9’ type activity too.
How? Cards can be cut out and arranged or colour coded.
A great visual activity which would sit nicely anywhere in the lesson or as a homework. Students need to match terms to definitions but also to a diagram which represents the word or process. Really useful to support students in their understanding.
This activity could be done as a cut and stick or, if you don’t like the faff of glue and scissors (like me!) then there are plenty of other ways for students to match. A good activity to build up their glossary of words in a topic where there are many new terms to learn!
Aimed at KS3 but could support lower ability KS4.
My revision methods are quite simple in my lessons - SPEC IT, REVISE IT, TEST IT. If students know EXACTLY WHAT they need to revise (using the specification checklist) it makes for smarter revision. If they can TEST THEMSELVES to measure their understanding - even better!
This resource is a comprehensive but concise knowledge organiser covering Periodic Table and Mendeleev (including Electronic Configuration). This knowledge organiser has been made against the Edexcel specification but would easily be applicable to others. Each revision point has been marked with the specification section (in green) to help students translate the specification points. The Knowledge Organiser is applicable to students sitting standard or higher tier papers (studying Separate or Combined Science routes). Each revision point has been written as a typical ‘stock exam answer’.
A great and simple revision game/resource which could be used anywhere within the cells, tissues and organs topic. The resource has a class set of questions which can be used to play switch-switch. Each student has a card (these will need to be printed off and cut up), asks another student the question on their card and waits for their response. If they’re correct brilliant, if not then the correct answer is shared. The other student then reciprocates and then the cards are swapped. In theory, if this activity runs for a few minutes, most students will see most of the cards.
A blank copy of the questions (no answers) could then be printed off and given out to see how many answers the students remember OR, a girls vs boys class competition could be set up.
A lovely little class activity or homework whereby students will need to complete a data collection by asking as many other students in their class, year, school how they get to school. Students will then need to display their data in a pie chart (although you could issue them with graph paper and ask them to produce a bar chart) and then complete the question task at the bottom of the page.
This task would nicely lead up to a lesson on how we can save energy.