Here is an activity/worksheet I have used to teach children across KS2 to investigate whether shape affects air resistance, using the following success criteria: • I know forces affect how objects move • I can explain what air resistance is • I can explain how air resistance affects real life objects • I can design objects with good/bad air resistance The activity involves children filling in the gaps in a paragraph to demonstrate their understanding of air resistance, then identifying what air resistance might be happening in picture scenarios, before being creative and designing two paper aeroplanes; one with bad air resistance, and the other with good - explaining how they can predict what will happen.

This is a great lesson to introduce a World War II topic. Using a Notebook presentation, it involves a range of discussion and activities helping children to understand what a world war is, why WWII started, what the two main sides were and why these alliances were formed. The lesson follows the objective and criteria: Objective: To be able to locate the Allies and Axis powers * I know the meaning of Allies and Axis * I can use an atlas to locate countries involved in WWII * I can identify which countries were Allied or Axis * I can explain why countries may have formed alliances The main lesson activity involves children using atlases to identify countries in Europe, and then either independently or as a class understanding and marking whether each country was Allied or Axis.

I made and taught these Art lessons alongside our class Victorians topic, helping children to understand why silhouette artwork became popular in the Victorian period, how silhouettes are made and identifying everyday objects by their silhouettes. The first lesson is an introduction, as described above. The task gets children to match images of everyday objects with its silhouette. The second lesson gets children to work in small groups to sketch their portrait silhouette outlines using torches and pencils. The third lesson brings a modern twist to the portrait silhouette, by getting children to fill their portrait not with solid black, but with drawings and colour linked to their own personality (which could be linked to Mindfulness in PHSE). UPDATE 27/03/2019 Presentation now available in Powerpoint format.

This resource is a class assembly that I did with my Year 3 and 4 classes about our cross-curricular topic for the term: Light. To make the script I split the class into five groups, and gave each group a question to research with helpful bullet points. They went away and did this over a lesson, making the notes from which I made a class assembly script! The script can easily be adapted to change children's names or to add or take away parts. The script also includes visual activities or objects that groups can be showing to support their part of the assembly. Group topics include: What is light? Sources of light Darkness Shadows Reflections It is designed to be an informative assembly, but fun and easily for an audience to follow. Enjoy!

I made this resource based on the 2019 Waitrose Christmas advert. It is about Edgar, a dragon who is easily excitable about things happening around him, but causes to him breathing fire, and therefore some accidents! He is friends with a young girl, his best friend, who tries to keep him out of trouble, and after one incident which causes the whole village to be angry with Edgar, she buys him a Christmas present which will bring joy to the festive dinner and make everyone happy again. I wanted to use this advert, not only because Christmas adverts continue to grow in quality and popularity, with children finding them very entertaining and engaging, but also to develop children’s description, focusing on character description in this lesson. Included is a story plan for children to note their ideas, a Powerpoint presentation for teaching the lesson, and a vocabulary sheet/ screenshots to help children to remember the plot. This can easily be adapted to develop a different Literacy skill or to suit a particular year group. Enjoy! And also see other Literacy recount lessons inspired by Christmas adverts in my TES shop!

I made this resource based on Sainsburys' 2015 Christmas advert. Judith Kerr's 'Mog The Cat' is brilliantly brought back to life in animation form. He is found having a bad dream in his family home, which caused a series of unfortunate events, ultimately causing the fire brigade to arrive! Christmas seemed like it was ruined for the family, but the village quickly came together to help and to make Christmas a happy and united occasion. My class last year loved this recount. In the first of the two lessons provided, the focus was on recounting the events from the animation, with use of adverbs to describe, but this can easily be adapted if you have a different Literacy skill that you want your class to develop! The second lesson in the pack gets children to edit and improve their writing. Look out for my other Christmas-themed Literacy resources!

Saint Andrew's Day is celebrated in Scotland and other countries on November 30th. This resource consists of an information text about the day, it's meaning and how it is celebrated both in Scotland and other countries, along with linked comprehension questions to challenge children's understanding of the text. Includes pictures in the information text to make it more interesting and engaging. Suitable for KS2 and easily adaptable. UPDATED 29/11/2017

Nelson Boles' 'Little Boat' animation is surprisingly powerful - taking a simple boat through a range of settings which sees it become more and more damaged by human life, storms and war, but with a surprising and heartwarming ending. This Literacy lesson challenges children to image they are the boat themselves and recount it's story in the first person, describing what it can see, but also what happens to it, and its consequential feelings. Lesson pack includes writing plan for children and full lesson notebook! Enjoy!

This lesson explains why gas masks were used during World War 2, including video clips from the 1930s reminding people to carry their masks with them at all times and to practise wearing them once a week. The lesson brainstorms what they were made from and their effectiveness, before comparing adult and child gas masks. The lesson objective is for children to make a gas mask using given materials, considering comfort, effectiveness to keep out gas, and appeal for children to wear them. There are lots more WWII resources in my shop too if you want to link further lessons. Enjoy!

I made this resource based on the 2016 John Lewis Christmas advert. It is about a dog called Buster who loves watching his young owner dream of being a professional gymnast, but then as her surprise gift is built on Christmas Eve, Buster appears becomes upset when the garden wildlife get to have a go, unbeknown to the family. The next morning, as the little girl flies out of bed and out into the garden to try her present, the family are lost for words when Buster pushes her aside to leap on to the trampoline first. I wanted to use this advert, not only because John Lewis adverts have become incredibly popular in the run up to Christmas, and therefore children find them very entertaining and engaging, but also to develop children’s description, focusing especially on verbs. Included are two differentiated story plans, a vocabulary sheet with larger screen shots from the film and a Notebook flip chart or Powerpoint presentation for teaching the lesson. This can easily be adapted to develop a different Literacy skill or to suit a particular year group. Enjoy! And also see other Literacy recount lessons inspired by John Lewis Christmas adverts in my TES shop! **UPDATED 05/11/2018 TO INCLUDE POWERPOINT VERSION OF THE LESSON PRESENTATION**

This activity would link well with primary teaching of forces, specifically gravity. It is in two parts: the first requires pupils to demonstrate their basic understanding by filling in missing words into a information paragraph about gravity (the missing words being at the bottom to select from). The second part requires children to demonstrate their understanding of gravity from own experiences, drawing pictures of where they have seen the force of gravity in action. Suitable for a Upper KS1 or Lower KS2 classes. Enjoy - and look out for more of my Science resources in my TES shop!

I made this resource based on the 2016 Sainsbury Christmas advert. It is about a man called Dave who is a busy Dad struggling to find time to spend with his family because of work commitments and commuting. Being a toy maker, he comes up with the idea on Christmas Eve to disguise the toys he makes to look like him, so that come Christmas Day, he could be at home with his family while work didn’t notice he was away. It’s got great graphics and a catchy song by James Corden, but most importantly the advert has a very real life, human element that many children and families can relate to. I wanted to use this advert, not only because Sainsburys Christmas adverts are now right up there in quality with John Lewis, with children finding them very entertaining and engaging, but also to develop children’s description, focusing especially on the point of view of a character. Included is a story plan for children to note their ideas and a Notebook presentation or Powerpoint for teaching the lesson. This can easily be adapted to develop a different Literacy skill or to suit a particular year group. Enjoy! And also see other Literacy recount lessons inspired by Christmas adverts in my TES shop! UPDATED 05/11/18 TO INCLUDE A POWERPOINT VERSION OF THE LESSON PRESENTATION

Planet Unknown is a brilliant futuristic animation about a two Space Rovers, sent to find potential inhabitable planets using 'nSeed' pods to detect the possibility of growing plants. In the story, the two Rovers are undertaking their mission, but suddenly find themselves battling through an asteroid shower. This resource is two lessons; the first gets children to brainstorm descriptive language for the two characters and the setting, while the second is the writing recount of events from the film. The two objectives are as follows: 1) To describe a film setting and its characters 2) To be able to recount a film as a written story These are each supported by specific success criteria to aid children's writing. This pack includes a Smartboard presentation with detailed slides for both lessons, a planning worksheet for lesson one, and screenshots JPEGs of the characters and the setting It can easily be adapted for different KS2 year groups and a particular skill focus, e.g. tense, sentence starters, grammar or vocab. I have kept it as a general recount focus involving all skills.

Oktapodi is the story of two in-love octopi who are suddenly separated (the female to be sold as food) leading to the male to endure a fast paced and exciting quest to rescue her. The objective of the writing task is: To be able to write a narrative using descriptive language Success Criteria: *I can give my narrative a beginning, middle and an end. *I can write in simple, compound and complex sentences. *I can use adjectives and similes to describe. *I can use powerful verbs and describe them using adverbs. *I can include my characters' viewpoint (how they feel). The resource pack includes a presentation for the two days of activities (day one, writing; day two; editing, improving and re-writing), a planning sheet for children to make notes on before completing their narrative.

I made this resource based on John Lewis' 2012 Christmas advert. It is about a snowman and snowwoman who are made by some children in their garden, but overnight, the snowman disappears. He is seen making an epic journey across mountains, rivers, city centres, and eventually he returns...with the little girl finding that he had bought his snowwoman some christmas presents. I wanted to use it to develop children's inference skills and to develop their description; both of the characters and the various settings that the snowman travelled through. Each KS2 class I've taught have loved this recount. Look out for other Literacy resources I am uploading based on the other John Lewis adverts!

These three worksheets would be perfect for children's independent work when learning about / understanding the difference between human and physical geographical features of locations. In this example, I chose a task involving the whole of the UK, a task focusing on London and another focusing on Edinburgh (these cities due to their visual differences and geographical distance, which could then lead to good plenary discussion when evaluating outcomes.) Children cut out pictures from each location, try to stick them by the matching place name in the table, then decide whether it is a physical or human feature. The London/Edinburgh sheets can both be used either in one or two lessons. The UK sheet will require atlases or Google Maps for children to look up key locations.

This activity gets children to compare the UK and Egypt's most important rivers; the Thames and the Nile. Using ICT, they will compare their size and overall importance by researching their length, depth, origin, mouth and major cities that they pass through and how each river has been used historically by their country. This would be a good cross-curricular activity to use if you are studying the Ancient Egyptians or Water/Rivers in your topic work and want to cover lots of skill sets.

I made this resource to link Year 6’s ICT and Science topics: internet researching and energy. The objective of the worksheet is to research facts which complete the tables / questions given. The topic covers a range of different types of energy and examples of how they are used across the world. The last task gets the children to research facts of their own for one fuel type.

This task, linked to Ancient Greek topic work, gets children to study different examples of Ancient Greek pottery, before they design their own pot shape outline in their books. They would then use this as a plan for when they make their pot from clay, following the instructions on the sheet.

This resource is a worksheet with a clear outline of a world map, on which children are challenged to draw key world rivers on. This can be used in a Water topic or to simply develop geographical knowledge / map reading skills. Using atlases and/or Google Maps, the children will locate each river, match it to the area on their map and try to accurately draw it on and label it. The rivers children are challenged to locate are: 1. Mississippi 4. Thames 7. Nile 2. Danube 5. Huang Ho 8. Niger 3. Ganges 6. Amazon