This is a short narrative in the past simple, with language exercises: true or false, cloze, match up and comprehension questions. It will be useful for years 5, 6, 7 and EAL pupils. My thanks to Ravensburger puzzles for permission to use this great picture. Isn't Flame a beaut?

30 slides with brain teasers, hidden words, quiz activities.... things you may find useful for tutor period or as lesson starters to get those brains in gear. I have created some of these slides and adapted others from the net. Many of the puzzles are all time classics. On slides where the animations don't come in, answers are on the notes section at the bottom of the slide.

This is a grid with question openers and tasks going through Bloom's taxonomy. It avoids modals (would, could, should, might) and compound tenses and uses simple language structures that students at an early level of English language acquisition can access.

This is a worksheet on meerkats - aren't they sweet? Could be used as a reading comprehension or as a literacy exercise to reinforce science terms.

There is a huge amount of detailed stuff out there about this day. Here, I have put together some interactive slides mainly about the languages themselves. Should suit years 5,6,7... Hope it's useful, colleagues!

Quotes on various areas of life: happiness, success, family, technology in the classroom etc.... The students analyse, compare and contrast and make up their own. Each slide could be used as a starter to get your students thinking or to promote debate. They could end by producing an inspirational poster.

This is a desk-top mat for mainstream teachers with EAL students in the class. It's a short check list and then suggested activities for beginners through to advanced bilingual learners.

The students decide which adjectives/phrases describe the witches and which describe Lady Macbeth. Good for EAL students as they have to decide whether the third person agreement is needed.

There are six shopping lists. What can students deduce about the people's personalities? On page 2, there are some prompts and a gap fill activity as differentiation.

There are two sets of 11 boxes with a short paragraph. In pairs, the students discuss which of each pair is the best paragraph and why. They can 'mix and match' and create their own version. Next, they match the 11 paragraphs up to the pictures and put them in sequence to tell the basic storyline. I have taken the box layout and pictures from the internet.

Some literacy activities for Christmas - 'how many words can you make from...?&' with fly in answers. Jumbled words of Christmas vocabulary and two Christmas pictures for memory games, with questions.

This is a series of pictures and comments about a boy's day to reinforce the present simple - what he normally/usually/sometimes does etc.. There is reading, sequencing, match up (sentences and pictures), true or false and a gap fill activity. Thanks to my colleague Sophia in Ukraine for the template. I&'ve done this for my EAL class, but it may suit younger pupils.

I ask my students to comment on each picture and make inferences. Then they have to prepare a 5 minute talk on whether they are for or against the death penalty and why. It's still a useful debate and can be linked to &'Of Mice and Men&'; and many other works they study.

This is a great nostalgic picture, with exercises to reinforce the present continuous and past simple tenses for EAL students. I play 'Splat!' and memory games with this kind of thing. I was kindly given permission to use the picture.

This is a number of great stills, which the students mind map, or think, pair, share. They need to place the pictures in context and say: Who? Where? When? What did...? Why did they...? How did s/he feel? What did they say? What happened just before? What happened afterwards? Etc...

A passage about a boy making new year resolutions, with exercises. Can be used as a preliminary before students think up new year's resolutions for themselves. The template is by Baiba.

A play based on Aesop's fable. There are six narrators, besides the main parts, which can easily be adapted to fewer or more. I&'ve tried to make it fun and upbeat. This version is based on a Youtube clip and I&';ve included the link. There is no talking in the video, so it's great for teaching EAL kids.

Six witches, each with an exercise. After completing the exercises, they can cut them up, jumble them, then match the right passage to the picture before sticking in their books. Just a bit of fun!

Here are some ideas for starter activities that require little or no preparation. They can be adapted to different subject areas.

Urban legend, adapted from the internet. The story is on the first slide, then there are various activities: visuals for Splat, or Q &A session; true or false/put the story in sequential order/guidelines for a hot seat and ideas on how to teach the story. My aim is to get the students to produce a recount.