I completed my PGCE at The Institute of Education in 2011, staying in London to start my career at a primary school in Hackney. I taught across KS2 in four years, while also co-ordinating Spanish and Science and receiving brilliant CPD training across a range of specialisms. In 2016 I moved to Lancashire, where I have been supply teacher for a range of local schools. I love creating engaging & purposeful resources to bring education to life and to give teachers their weekends back!
I completed my PGCE at The Institute of Education in 2011, staying in London to start my career at a primary school in Hackney. I taught across KS2 in four years, while also co-ordinating Spanish and Science and receiving brilliant CPD training across a range of specialisms. In 2016 I moved to Lancashire, where I have been supply teacher for a range of local schools. I love creating engaging & purposeful resources to bring education to life and to give teachers their weekends back!
This lesson helps children to understand the difference between solids, liquids and gases by teaching them that each state of matter has different molecules. It starts by explaining what molecules are, understanding how they move by predicting which diagram is for which state of matter (with reason) and then linking solids, liquids and gases to every day objects to demonstrate their understanding.
Lesson includes links to useful videos, talk partner opportunities and an idea/model for a lesson activity. Suitable for KS1 and Lower KS2.
This bundle contains three different lesson activities, all of which develop children's atlas skills. One activity gets children to use an atlas to locate rivers of the world, another gets them to locate UK cities/rivers/parks and the third teaches children about latitude and longitude.
In this Art lesson, children compare different portrait artists by studying 6 examples (each with the artist given) and then using the internet to research the date that the portrait was completed and who it is a portrait of. As an extension, they can also describe the use of colour in each portrait to compare the different examples.
Artists to be studied include; Yousuf Karsh, John Singer Sargant, David Hockney, Picasso, Da Vinci and Rembrandt.
This activity would be a good cross-curricular focus for developing Maths and Science skills as it covers a range of success criteria meeting both curriculum skills:
* I know what thermometers are used for
* I know the unit of measurement for temperature is Celsius
* I understand what is meant by ‘room temperature’
* I understand what is meant by ‘boiling temperature’
* I can explain why temperatures might vary within a room
* I can read the scales of thermometers to identify temperature
It involves placing 4 containers of (boiling water in different parts of a classroom, for children to predict what will happen to each of them, considering possible factors in the room. This helps children to understand room temperature and how it can vary.
These two worksheets allow children to describe (draw, feel, source) and compare (texture, size, durability, colour) different rock samples practically in the lesson.
UPDATE 22/11/16: Resource now includes linking interactive lesson notebook presentation! Woo!
This lesson activity developed two learning objectives: 1) To understand that Canada is made up of different provinces and 2) To be able to use Google Maps to locate places.
My class studied the human and physical geographical features of Canada as part of their cross-curricular topic work (mainly focusing on rivers and mountains) therefore I wanted them to get to know the geography of Canada itself more, especially because it is so diverse. Therefore I made this activity which required children to:
• Understand what a ‘province’ is
• Understand why countries like Canada are split into different provinces
• Use Google Maps to find global locations
• Use the physical shape of a country to estimate the location of key places
They then used the internet to research information about provinces, and then to locate key provinces, cities, and physical geographical features (e.g. Hudson Bay), marking them as accurately as possible on to their own blank map. I have included one blank map example, but others are readily available on Google images.
This activity gets children to practically investigate the permeability of rocks. To do this, they need to understand what ‘permeable’ and ‘impermeable’ means, predict whether rocks will be permeable or impermeable, support their predictions with explanations, observe rocks closely to investigate their permeability and write a conclusion based on the outcome of the investigation.
The worksheet suggests that 3 rocks are used to test, and includes space to write/draw the rocks and to show their understanding and outcomes from the investigation.
UPDATED 22/11/2016 to include whole lesson presentation flip/notebook! Woo!
Having taught in an East London primary school, it was great to see Stratford change right in front of our eyes when the Olympic site and surrounding parkland was changed. Therefore, I wanted to use this experience in the teaching of human geography - comparing how East London changed before to after the 2012 Olympic Games through different photographs.
I hope this resource can be enjoyed by classes all over the country - not just in London!
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!
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!
This lesson gets children to investigate rocks practically - either in or outside of the classroom!
It involves them comparing rocks by their size, shape, texture, durability, and many other factors, while also extending to thinking about why rocks are different.
This is a cross-curricular lesson which links nicely with Maths, as it requires children to sort different rocks using a Venn Diagram. Included is a lesson presentation notebook and a worksheet and photographs from when I continued this lesson outside of the classroom on Hampstead Heath!
Easily adaptable for a range of KS2 classes. Enjoy!
This activity allows children to demonstrate their understanding of what gravity is, how it is measured, and to practically investigate and compare the weight of different objects.
The objective is to understand that gravity gives us weight, with the following steps to success:
- I know gravity is a force
- I know that gravity affects the weight of objects
- I know that weight is measured in Newtons
- I can measure and record the weight of different objects
Challenge: I can explain the difference between weight and mass
The worksheet involves children being able to explain the difference between weight and mass, to draw a newton meter, and to use one to measure the weight of different classroom objects, recording their results in table form.
This worksheet can easily be adapted for different classes and abilities.
The objective for this lesson is to understand the measurement of time and comes in two parts. The first gauges children's prior understanding of the following success criteria:
* I know how many seconds are in 1 minute
* I know how many minutes are in 1 hour
* I know how many hours are in 1 day
* I know how many days are in a week and year
Included is a worksheet for children to complete, with extra challenges on the notebook board for your higher abilities to be extended.
In the second part of the lesson I wanted to challenge and extend children's knowledge of time, so I linked in a TED animation about how time is linked to both Maths and Science. It explains the concept of time measurement using flip book animation, which children can relate to. From this, I challenged children to make a short flip book of their own, using one of the two examples modelled in the video. My kids absolutely loved this lesson, and even made longer and more detailed flip books at home afterwards using different time criteria!
These two worksheets can expand to form a Science topic over four to five lessons.
Using their prior knowledge of materials and wind power, children independently design their own boat powered by wind either on paper or in their Science books. Existing examples could be shown.
Then, at the start of the next lesson, children would use the first worksheet in this resource to evaluate each others designs using the following criteria:
• Shape – How will this affect how it moves and balances on the water?
• Size – How will this affect how the boat floats and balances?
• Materials – Are they waterproof? How will you join them securely?
• Sail – How will it steadily stay up and move the boat forwards?
Following this, either in the same or next lesson, groups would then choose the best design or combination of design ideas from those on their table, to form a final group design of a boat with a sail.
On the second sheet in this resource, they would then work together to plan their final design, using the following criteria:
* I can consider the effect of water resistance in my boat design
* I can make a sail that will catch wind
* I can consider suitable materials to make my boat
* I can annotate my design to explain material and shape choices
Each group would draw their final boat design and list the materials needed to make it, before going on to make their boat in the following lesson, and then test them the lesson after that in a suitable outdoor location! (...we used a paddling pool!)
After years and years of finding the monitoring of children's progress in subjects such as Science, PE and ICT to be difficult both in terms of practicality and time, I was made Science coordinator at my school, and therefore had the opportunity to face the conundrum head on. I was determined, especially after "assessment without levels" came in, to find a more time manageable, yet effective and clear, method of tracking pupils progress outside of the big three.
Therefore I came up with this; an easily adaptable tracking sheet which allows teachers for each class to simply input their register and planned Science objectives for the half term. Tracking then works like a traffic-light system - if under the first objective some children displayed really good or even advanced understanding, I put a red dot in the first column by their name. If some children really took to the learning well and came away with a good understanding from the lesson, I gave them a green dot to show they were on track. And if children seemed to struggle with an objective and didn't come away with a clear understanding, I gave them a yellow dot. (FYI - this was tracked discreetly during and after the lesson).
ADDITIONALLY - during the next lesson, I would look to start by recapping from the previous week's objective, targeting children on yellow and green with my questioning. If a child I had previously dotted yellow seemed to show a good recollection of key ideas and facts then I would add a green dot next to their original yellow dot to override it.
All the above instructions are at the top of the tracking sheet. Additionally, this assessment tool allows teachers to monitor what Science objectives they have taught through the year, to ensure expected coverage, and can help coordinators ensure that classes across the school have good coverage of the curriculum and are not repeating the same topics unnecessarily.
This resource helps children to consider the progression of time chronologically and the duration of different events. The lesson objective is to be able to create a daily routine using time facts
Success Criteria:
* I can order events chronologically
* I can use vocabulary linked to the time of day
* I can identify what time activities start and end
* I represent times on an analogue clock
Challenge: I can state how long activities last
The lesson starts with a discussion about what key events would be included in a daily routine, with children thinking of their own personal examples. It then moves on to a teacher model of how time would be considered in a daily routine, from the start and end times to knowing the approximate duration of activities (i.e. they would know that brushing your teeth takes 5 minutes rather than 50 minutes).
Children then independently create their own daily routine plan on the worksheet provided, which has been differentiated to challenge different learners.
This lesson would suit KS1 and LKS2 classes and is easily adaptable. Enjoy!
This lesson models to children how to read the time on an analogue clock using the following Success Criteria:
* I know how many minutes are in an hour
* I know the minutes that each number on a clock face represents
* I know when the time is at quarter past / half past / quarter to the hour
* I can identify what hour the time is currently in
Challenge: I can say times according to the approaching hour (e.g. ten mins to six = 5:50)
It is contains a balanced mixture of partner talk questions, teacher modelling and independent activities, along with helpful links to resources to support the objective. It even has a challenge plenary at the end, asking pupils what is wrong with the given analogue time (answer: the small hand is too close to the next hour when the minute hand is only on quarter past).
I cannot include worksheets for this lesson as I would be copyrighting other people's resources, but I have included links on one page to analogue clock resources. Or you could just Google it - plenty of free ones come up! Enjoy!
This lesson models to children how to write the time on an analogue clock using the following Success Criteria:
* I know the big hand represents minutes
* I know that the small hand represents the current hour
* I know the minutes that each number on a clock face represents
* I can move the hour hand according to the number of minutes past
Challenge: I can present the 24 hour clock in analogue form
It is contains a balanced mixture of partner talk questions, teacher modelling and independent activities, along with helpful links to resources to support the objective.
I cannot include worksheets for this lesson as I would be copyrighting other people's resources, but I have included links on one page to analogue clock resources. Or you could just Google it - plenty of free ones come up! Enjoy!
This lesson models to children how to convert times between the 12 and 24 hour clocks using the following Success Criteria:
* I know that there are 24 hours in a day
* I know morning = am / afternoon = pm
* I label an analogue clock using 24 hour times
* I can use my clock to tell the time across 24 hours
Challenge: I can tell the time to the nearest minute
It is contains a balanced mixture of partner talk questions, teacher modelling and independent activities, along with helpful links to resources to support the objective. It even has a challenge plenary at the end, asking pupils to write 24 hour times on a blank analogue clock.
I've included a short lesson activity for this lesson, but I cannot include worksheets for this lesson as I would be copyrighting other people's resources, but I have included links on one page to analogue clock resources. Enjoy!
A pack of engaging Science lessons (made by a school Science co-ordinator) put together in one handy bundle linking to forces and motion.
I love making Science as interesting, informative and hands-on as possible for children in order to develop their understanding of various concepts.