It's simple really: English grammar can be a very dry subject, but this need not be the case. For a few years now, I have been developing a games-based approach to teaching important grammar concepts. It is amazing how the introduction of dice takes the learning into a new place - the element of chance making it seem less like work and more like play. Because I test my games extensively in the classroom, I get a feel for what works. Dump your boring worksheets and start dicing with grammar.
It's simple really: English grammar can be a very dry subject, but this need not be the case. For a few years now, I have been developing a games-based approach to teaching important grammar concepts. It is amazing how the introduction of dice takes the learning into a new place - the element of chance making it seem less like work and more like play. Because I test my games extensively in the classroom, I get a feel for what works. Dump your boring worksheets and start dicing with grammar.
27 ways to for KS2 writers to edit and improve their own writing. This project was written by Fiona Keeling and Maurice Leahy and has been loosely inspired by Brighton Train Station (bear with us). We put it together to help children develop writing further at the editing stage. The PowerPoint explains how it works, but we are sure you’ll find your own ways to use this.
Fiona brings it to life in her classroom with a cap, whistle and realistic train tickets!
It was a lot of work, so if you spot the odd error, please let us know and we will put it right.
We hope it saves you some precious time. Please leave a review. Happy editing!
This bundle is three KS2 writing resources (or 6 weeks of fully planned and resourced English lessons) exploring the story of ‘Theseus and the Minotaur’. It includes a three week myth writing unit, as a five session newspaper report unit and a five session poetry and book making unit.
This activity has also been developed into ‘First Week Back Poetry’, a fully resourced one week unit (PowerPoints, plans, activities). It is available from my shop. Please follow this link https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/resource-12907781
Upper KS2 poetry activity: ‘What I DIDN’T do over the summer!’ We didn’t all go on amazing holidays over the summer, but there are amazing things in front of our noses. Try this poetry activity with upper KS2 children.
If you use this - and I saved you some time - please leave a review in return.
Six poetry lessons for upper KS2 with a focus on performance and creative writing. All plans and resources included - everything you need is here. All work is produced using Word and Powerpoint, so edit as you wish. Most of all… enjoy. This is a fun unit!
Overview of unit
Session 1 Explore tricky vocabulary
I can explore the meaning of words
Session 2 Read, discuss, perform
I can bring a poem to life using my voice
**Session 3 Explore, map, recite **
I can visualise a poem and recite it from memory
Session 4 Comprehension
I can explain the meaning of words in context
I can find information in poetry
I can justify inferences with evidence
Session 5 Create poetry
I can write a free verse poem using a familiar theme and structure
Session 6 Peer edit for impact + perform
I can choose verbs and nouns phrases to create imagery
I can perform my own composition fluently
Put your children in pairs to play the fun spelling game ‘VictoriOUS’. It’s a two player dice game that enables children to learn these four rules for adding the suffix ‘ous’:
Some root word do not change – just add ‘ous’
For many root words that end in e, take off the ‘e’ and add ‘ous’
If the root word ends ‘-ge’, keep the ‘e’ and add ‘ous’
Change the ‘y’ to an ‘i’ and add ‘ous’
How about words that can’t have the ‘ous’ suffix?
Peer assessment is built in. Everything that you need is here - just add 1-6 dice!
Here is a fun 2 player dice game to liven-up exploring silent letters. There is also a PowerPoint with plenty of activities and questions to get the session started. There is an extension task for speedy players who finish games quickly.
Use this to develop children’s understanding of clauses, and to encourage children to vary the number of clauses they include within their sentences.
Assessment focus
I can understand the terms ‘clause’ and ‘conjunction’.
I can say sentences with one or more clauses.
I can write sentences with many clauses, without confusing the reader.
This activity promotes lots of talk around word classes and building multi-clause sentences.
Dice game! Warm up! Presentation! Missing dashes activity!
I’ve probably spent too much time thinking about how to teach young writers to understand dashes and to use them creatively. The end result is a dice activity which teaches children six simple ways of using dashes effectively.
Children who take part in this writing activity will learn six different (and fool proof!) ways of dropping in extra thoughts and ideas between dashes. It is surprising the depth this can add to fiction writing.
*As well as the dice activity, I have also included a 15 slide PowerPoint. This explains how dashes can be used, and it has extension activities.
*I have also included a warm up activity that always leads to some useful discussion.
*I have also included a ‘add the missing dashes’ activity
Teachers, if you swap the sentences in this activity to match your own writing projects, children can generate superb sentences to add to their own compositions.
‘Noun or Not?’ is a two player dice game aimed at Key Stage 2 children. It has an interesting wildlife theme and built in peer assessment, so pupils can correct each other as they go along. There are 6 ‘going deeper’ activities involving plenty of challenge. I’m sure your class will love this way of looking at nouns - BETTER THAN A WORKSHEET!
Assessment focus:
I can write a sentence that makes sense by itself
Children explore sentences that make sense and sentences that do not. They fix sentences and write them correctly. The main activity is differentiated 3 ways.
Included:
Lesson plan
Warm up
Activity differentiated 3 ways
Contractions come up in Year 2, but I have made these resources for KS2, as children still need to practise accurate use of apostrophes. Included are two engaing dice games (‘Contraction Creator’ and ‘The Memory Test’). Both are far more memorable and fun than dull worksheets. There is also a support activity and a presentation. Enjoy!
Excellent grammar session! Fully differentiated! Including ‘support’ and ‘going deeper’ activities and a detailed PowerPoint to use in class. Available as word and PDF docs.
Assessment focus
I can identify nouns and verbs
When I classify (group) a word, I think about the job it is doing in the sentence
Explanation
We spend a lot of time telling children that nouns are ‘people, places, things and ideas’ and verbs are ‘actions or states of being’. These are useful starting points for younger learners, but there is a little more it…
If you ask children to classify ‘walk’, ‘laugh’, ‘object’ and ‘book’, they will likely tell you that the first two are verbs and the second two are nouns. Understandable! In fact, these words can be nouns or verbs, and there are many similar examples. Therefore, when children are classifying a word, we need to encourage them to look at the function of the word within its sentence.
The walk was long and tiring. (Noun)
I walk to school. (Verb)
This two player dice game, aimed at upper KS2, gives pupils lots of opportunities to identify nouns and verbs. More than that, they also explore the function of words that can be used as nouns and verbs. Children have to look at the whole sentence before classifying a word. It has built in peer assessment, so there is NO MARKING REQUIRED! Pupils assess each other’s answers as the game progresses: player A has player B’s answers and vice versa. Lots of opportunities for pupil talk!
It’s an engaging way to get pupils talking about the function of words and is much richer than a simple worksheet.
Updated for 2019! Young people are interested in drones, so if you are teaching argument, persuasion or discussion, make the most of their enthusiasm for these popular flying gadgets. Also, drones are always in the news and it is motivating to pick a current issue.
Here are two fantastic drone themed lessons (around 150 minutes required) broken into nine activities, suitable for Key Stage 2 writers and no doubt useful for KS3 as well.
All children will have opportunities to ‘talk the language of debate’ and produce a piece of writing either ‘for’ or ‘against’ drones. It’s a winner!
There is also drone background information; links to videos; key argument cards; banks of useful sentence openers; modal verbs; suggestions for support/extension activities; a planning sheet; an example text and a detailed self/peer assessment sheet (or toolkit). Everything you need.
The nine fully resourced activities are:
1. Get to know drones!
2. Meaning breakdown – understand tricky new words
3. Pick a side
4. ‘For’ or ‘against’?
5. Organise your debate
6. Useful sentence openers for debate and persuasion
7. Switch sides!
8. Write a persuasive letter/blog for the school website
9. Self assessment/peer assessment
There are lots of resources already available for expanded noun phrases, but none that really challenge children to develop their vocabulary and make really adventurous or precise choices.
This dice activity encourages children to try out new word choices from extensive word banks, and it is fully differentiated into three versions. In its simplest form, children add adjectives and pairs of adjectives to noun phrases. In its most challenging form, children may have to add two compound adjectives and a preposition phrase - this can result in some wonderfully descriptive sentences.
It all depends on the roll of a dice. Of course, teachers that love using my games will have guessed that already! Try it with your class and then ask them to apply the skill in their next composition.
Fully editable so that you can easily adapt it to the unit you are working on by changing the single clause sentences that the children will be developing.
*The main version here works well with myth, legend and adventure, but I have added a sci-fi version to show how it can be adapted for use with any fiction.
Use the excellent ‘paragraph party’ approach to explore the concept of non-fiction paragraphing in a fun and engaging way.
Here are 4 different paragraph parties on a wide variety of non-fiction subjects. The skills are transferrable. I use this approach everytime I teach the idea of paragraphing to young writers and it does get the message across very well.
Try it!
This is a 14 session biography writing unit for upper KS2. Children explore the life of Anne Frank - supporting history learning about WW2 - and then go on to choose one of four other people who SHOOK THE WORLD while they were young (Boyan Slat, Greta Thunberg, Pele or Marley Dias). After learning new writing skills, children write a biography about their chosen subject.
If you purchase this unit, please open the youthquake biography zip file. Each of the 14 lessons is organised into its own subfolder. All lesson plans, lesson slides and activities are included - it’s ready to go. Everything is created in PowerPoint and Word, so you can edit and adapt as you wish. The png files you can see in the previews are just there to give a taste of the first few lessons.
Your class will enjoy learning about biographies and creating a YOUTHQUAKE!
Throughout this unit, I would recommend reading children selected biographies from YouthQuake: 50 Children and Young People Who Shook the World by Tom Adams & Sarah Walsh.
A two player dice game that really gets children talking about the rules for adding -ing. This resource comes with a peer marking sheet so that children can learn from each other. Depending on your class, you’ll need at least 30 minutes to play this.