A lesson focusing on the different purposes of colons and semi-colons, suitable for a year 5 and 6 class. The lesson uses the short video, Alma, as a means to capture the children’s attention. A SPaG starter is used as a warm up before the children are taught the many different purposes of the punctuation and then apply it to their own sentence. This is a very hands on lesson with a lot of back and forth between the teacher and the children. An extension activity is also offered if time allows. This is one of the lessons as part of my descriptive unit of work on Alma, which can be found here: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/alma-unit-of-work-12200651

Part of the War Horse - Historical Story Writing Unit of work (3 weeks). https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/historical-stories-war-horse-war-game-and-one-boy-s-war-12205177 This lesson is a cross curricular lesson that incorporates historical inquiry to tie in with a later English lesson. Children have been reading War Horse in class and are now going to use what they have been exposed to in the story to study the importance of historical accuracy when writing about a specified time period. The lesson looks into the term anachronism in order to then allow children to research factual information, the daily life of those in World War 1 and their hobbies and roles in society with the aim of identifying features that they can include in their own writing for contextually accurate pieces. Attached is the presentation for the lesson, the lesson plan and some research for children to use if they do not have access to books on the time period of internet access.

A Guided Reading resource for a Year 5/6 class based over 27 lessons on the book 'Skellig’ by David Almond. This resource contains the planning for each lesson and the pages that should be read in each as well as questions and prompts for the teacher. It also contains the comprehension pack for the children to complete every third lesson. The lessons are split into three parts. Lesson 1 is a shared/classroom discussion lesson that focuses on all children and teachers reading a set amount of pages. As children read they should be challenged through the selection of vocabulary in the pages and asked inference and retrieval questions throughout whilst reading this gripping tale. Lesson 2 focuses on applying the skills of a written comprehension. Children shall re-read the same pages from the previous lesson, however this time they shall be given a selection of questions that range in purpose; from inference, retrieval, prediction, knowledge of language and more. The questions and wording shall be discussed as a class and then as groups children shall work through these problems and then their answers shall be modeled and shared as a class and supported through teacher involvement. Lesson 3 acts as an independent lesson that pulls together the different skills the children have been working on. They shall read the next specified section of the book and then complete a comprehension sheet on the read pages. The children will be expected to put into practice the type of answers they have been working on as a class and use the code at the top of the comprehension page to help them identify the manner in which they should answer the question.

This is a complete unit of work focusing on the use of the short video - Alma. This is aimed at an upper Year 5 class or early Year 6 class. It contains 6 lessons focusing on a descriptive writing element to the story, whereby the children develop a story focusing on setting; relative and subordinate clauses; cohesive devices; colons and semi-colons and then a descriptive recount and edit. The additional three lessons focus on discussion and persuasive writing. However the third and final lesson can be split into two depending on the time allowed for the lesson and the ability of the children. All planning is included as well as the resources and supporting resources necessary to conduct the lessons and activities.

Differentiated resource sorting multiples into Venn diagrams.

This is a lesson for early on in a World War 2 unit of work or to provide children with some contextual knowledge for the period surrounding World War 2. It contains a presentation giving key information and events that preceded the war with explanations as to their importance. Differentiation is involved in the recapping of events and the ordering of the timeline, furthermore a detailed paragraph considering the significance of the events is offered. Also included are the planning for the lesson and the resources for the timelines.

A Guided Reading resource for a Year 6 class based over 21 lessons on the book ‘The Explorer’ by Katherine Rundell. This resource contains the planning for each lesson and the pages that should be read in each as well as questions and prompts for the teacher. It also contains the comprehension pack for the children to complete every third lesson. The lessons are split into three parts. Lesson 1 is a shared/classroom discussion lesson that focuses on all children and teachers reading a set amount of pages. As children read they should be challenged through the selection of vocabulary in the pages and asked inference and retrieval questions throughout whilst reading this gripping tale. Lesson 2 focuses on applying the skills of a written comprehension. Children shall re-read the same pages from the previous lesson, however this time they shall be given a selection of questions that range in purpose; from inference, retrieval, prediction, knowledge of language and more. The questions and wording shall be discussed as a class and then as groups children shall work through these problems and then their answers shall be modeled and shared as a class and supported through teacher involvement. Lesson 3 acts as an independent lesson that pulls together the different skills the children have been working on. They shall read the next specified section of the book and then complete a comprehension sheet on the read pages. The children will be expected to put into practice the type of answers they have been working on as a class and use the code at the top of the comprehension page to help them identify the manner in which they should answer the question.

This resource contains two weeks of lessons (9) and planning using the critically acclaimed picture book ‘The Watertower’. 6 lessons involved in the planning are aimed at supporting key elements and features of SPaG that shall be used in the end goal of writing a newspaper report describing the Watertower and its impact on the community of Preston. Within these lessons, children are presented with the opportunity to explore their own interpretation of the book, look into the difference between factual information and rumour and create their own short descriptive story as to what happens to Bubba but is only implied (which can be a short story from a 1st or 3rd person perspective). The final lessons are a step by step planning guide to creating a newspaper report focusing on creating a balanced viewpoint on whether or not the watertower should be pulled down, followed by an editing lesson and final write-up lesson. Checklists and success criteria are provided alongside the presentations and all resources that are needed for each lesson. It is suitable for later on in Year 5 or Year 6 class. I highly recommend obtaining a copy of the book (whilst images are present in the presentations needed for the lessons) so that the children can study the images more closely. Would also be a very useful book for some creative writing and inference and retrieval reading lessons. Lesson 5 requires the use of newspaper reports from local sources or national papers. Suitable articles would include those that have discussion topics, present information about factual events or persuasive articles to show the contrast in report writing.

This resource is a Guided Reading unit of work based on The Nowhere Emporium by Ross Mackenzie. It is suitable for Year 5 classes. Within the pack are two highly detailed resources that are 30 lessons worth: The Nowhere Emporium teacher pack - a series of key questions for each lesson based on a chronological breakdown of the novel. Each question is based on a criteria to test different aspects of children’s reading abilities. Answers are given for the key questions in the notes and space is left for notes taken on children’s feedback. Questions can be added or altered based on class needs. The Nowhere Emporium Activity Booklet - 10 separate comprehension activities designed for independent reading and completion. These occur every third lesson and contain a key as to what type of question is being asked of the children. This is taught through a three lesson framework per week but can be taught continuously. Lesson 1 of three is a shared reading lesson where teachers and children read the given chapter together with the teacher stopping for questioning and prompting. Lesson 2 of the three is a discussion lesson where children re-read the previous days lesson and then apply their growing comprehension skills to retrieve, infer, summarise and predict. Teacher and class feedback then allows formation of answers to the given questions. Lesson 3 is an independent activity lesson where children read the next section of the novel and complete the activity page based on their reading.