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 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!
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 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!
As an introduction to your Plants topic, get children to brainstorm what they already know about plants. This will help you to direct your future planning more precisely by not repeating old knowledge or allowing you to plug clear gaps in understanding.
Also, this lesson will allow children to brainstorm what they would LIKE to know, which gains you an insight into their interests about plants, helping you to produce engaging and focused lessons to inspire them!
These three lessons, designed for KS2, help children to understand sound, how it travels, how sound can be different and what materials can block sound. The objectives are as follows:
Lesson 1 - Objective: To understand that sounds are made when objects vibrate
Success Criteria:
I can understand that sounds are made when objects vibrate.
I can compare how sounds travel through gases, liquids and solids
I can investigate how sounds travel through different objects
I can explain the results of my investigation using scientific diagrams/language
The lesson poses various questions to children throughout the notebook presentation about what sound is, how we hear, how sound might travel differently, to allow them to demonstrate their prior knowledge or ideas. It also includes useful links which help to embed given facts, mini tasks to engage the class, and best of all, a creative main activity where children investigate whether sound travels through string telephones! The differentiated plenary is a 'fill-the-gaps' activity which assesses children's understanding from the lesson.
Lesson 2 - Objective: To investigate how the pitch and volume of instruments can be changed
Success Criteria:
I can understand that sounds are made when objects vibrate.
I can explain what is meant by the 'pitch' of sound
I can explain what is meant by the 'volume' of sound
I can make predictions
I can alter the pitch and volume of various musical instruments
Children meet this objective by first recapping what they have already learnt about sound, by learning the difference between 'pitch' and 'volume' using different links in the notebook and then by investigating pitch and volume using an online BBC Bitesize activity, noting their predictions and conclusions in their books. Musical instruments could be used in the lesson as well!
Lesson 3 - LI: To investigate whether materials effect the movement of soundwaves
SC:
I can identify the properties of different materials
I understand how sound travels through solids, liquids and gases
I can make predictions
I can identify whether an experiment is a fair test
I can explain the results of an experiment
The lesson starts by recapping previous learning, before brainstorming in what scenarios we might want sound to be blocked. Children then conduct an experiment, comparing which materials would be best to block sound.
This worksheet allows children to thoroughly plan and design their own product that uses magnets, following this success criteria:
I can list some ways in which magnets are used at home and school
I can suggest other ways in which magnets could be used
I can present ideas using labelled diagrams/notes
This lesson would ideally be used after learning about forces and magnets, allowing children to creatively demonstrate and extended their understanding, cross-curricular with DT.
This resource helps children to understand the concept of inheritance in biology using the following success criteria:
I know that living things produce offspring of the same kind
I know that living things pass down particular characteristics to their offspring
I know that offspring will inherit characteristics from both parents
I know that offspring are not identical to their parents
In the activity they will think about their own characteristics and then compare these with their family's characteristics (parents, siblings). They will then use The Rugrats as an example to show how offspring can be similar to one or both of their parents, but not identical.
Suitable for upper KS2.
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.
This activity worksheet gets children to investigate the importance of photosynthesis in the plant lifecycle.
It involves them planning the investigation (understanding what they want to find out and how they will achieve it), predicting what they think will happen, what equipment they will need, and how they will ensure the investigation is a fair test.
The activity sheet is scaffolded to support different abilities and will support primary teaching of photosynthesis.
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!)
This lesson pack includes a Notebook presentation and linking worksheets, getting children to investigate how different materials can affect the movement of an object. First, they recap what forces are, such as push/pulls, then move on to understanding gravity.
A push force is not needed to make a car go down a ramp, because gravity acts upon the car, moving it to the flat surface. However the material on the flat surface can affect how far the car travels, and therefore affects the force upon the car. The children will investigate which materials will impact most on the force of the car (i.e. which material will allow the car to go furthest/not as far) using the following objective and criteria:
Objective: To investigate how materials affect forces
Success Criteria
I can make predictions using prior knowledge
I can carry out an enquiry to test a prediction
I can take and record accurate measurements
I can use my results to draw simple conclusions
This resource is part of a whole half term of engaging lessons which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about Animals including Humans. This lesson initially recaps children's understanding of human and animal skeletons, before focusing on developing their knowledge of food groups. It includes questions to stimulate children's ideas and understanding, various interactive links to engage and support, and suggested tasks to allow children to demonstrate and challenge their understanding.
The Lesson Objective and Success Criteria are:
LI: To know the different food groups
Success Criteria
I can explain what animals and humans need to stay healthy
I can name common food groups
I can name example foods in each group
This resource is part of a whole half term of engaging lessons which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about the Humans including Animals. This lesson recaps children's knowledge of the human skeleton and then moves on to focus on animal skeletons, comparing different types, identifying well known animals by their skeleton and comparing human and animal skeletons. The resource includes questions to stimulate children's ideas and understanding, links to various video clips and interactive websites to engage and support, and both group and independent tasks to allow children to demonstrate and challenge their understanding.
The lesson objective and success criteria include:
LI: To compare the skeletons of different animals
Success Criteria
I can use first hand observations to find out about skeletons
I can use secondary sources to find out about skeletons
I can use observations to make predictions
I can identify similarities and differences between human/animal skeletons
This resource is the perfect introduction to a half termly topic which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about the human body, skeletons of both humans and animals, food groups and digestion. This particular lessons gets children to brainstorm what they already know about animals and humans, and what they would like to find out, helpfully allowing you to adapt your planning to match their subject knowledge..
Objectives and success criteria include:
1) LI: To be able to produce facts that state my current understanding
1) LI: To be able to ask questions which would develop my understanding
Success Criteria
I can state what I already know about a given topic
I can ask questions linked to a given topic to develop my understanding
I can use a range of question starters (what, who, how, when, do...)
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 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.
A collection of six reading comprehension activities using real life newspaper articles. Each contains a copy of a newspaper article suitable for KS2 (new species of spider / Pangaea / blizzard / Remembrance Day / St Andrews Day/ Hedgehog preservation / Fifa Poppies) and questions that I have made myself to test their comprehension of the articles.
03/07/16 - UPDATED TO INCLUDE MOUNTAIN REPTILE ARTICLE
This lesson recaps what materials are and different examples. It then focuses on why materials are chosen for specific purposes, the properties of materials to suit a particular purpose (e.g. why we wear clothes made out of cotton), and ultimately the lesson focus is to compare different materials and conduct experiments to select the best material for a bike seat.
Included is a whole lesson presentation and worksheet for comparing the materials.