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.

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!

I used these lessons at the end of our Rocks topic in Science with my Year 3 class, but they were also used by Year 6 at their end of Evolution and Inheritance, so they are easily adaptable! The resource consists of a notebook of two lessons; one focusing on fossils, and the other on famous British fossil hunter Mary Anning. I used the latter lesson during a school inspection, and it went down well both with the visitor and the class! The lessons focus on develop children's understanding of fossils, how they link to rocks, and how fossil hunting is still important today. Luckily, at the time, Tiger stocked cheap fossil digging kits, so I bought some for the class to try in a third lesson and it was brilliant! I've seen them in other shops since and I'm sure they're available on the internet - photos are included of the children delicately chipping and brushing away.

This lesson focuses on teaching children that forces can be transferred from being balanced to unbalanced using pushes and pulls. The activity involves completing a paragraph demonstrating their understanding of forces and identifying examples of balanced/unbalanced forces within the classroom. The success criteria includes: * I know what forces are measured in * I know that a force is a push or pull * I can explain the difference between a balanced and an unbalanced force * I can place a force on an object * I can draw and label a diagram explaining what a force looks like

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 develops children atlas skills with a focus on the UK. Not only does it require children to study a map and locate places so they can mark them on a blank map, but it will also require them to understand the best page(s) to use to find particular information or country, especially when a place is too small to spot and they need to use the index. This activity will require children to locate 8 cities, 4 rivers, 4 national parks, 3 mountain ranges and (as a challenge), one ancient monument using specified colours. I have included example blank maps, but others are readily available under a Google search. Enjoy!

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.

This worksheet challenges children's atlas skills as they try to locate 8 major world rivers and then accurately draw them onto the map. Rivers: 1. Mississippi 4. Thames 7. Nile 2. Danube 5. Huang Ho 8. Niger 3. Ganges 6. Amazon

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.

As it is hot topic in the news at the moment, I took one of the articles about the poppy / FIFA debate from the BBC and made it into a reading comprehension exercise to give children a purposeful activity in their reading time and something that could later be discussed in PHSE/circle time. In this pack is a PDF copy of the article (which is still available online) and linked questions suitable and easily adaptable for all KS2.

I made this lesson to help my class develop their variation of sentence starters. My lesson notebook models different examples using the helpful poster (which can be made into a dice) and then gets children to apply their understanding by recounting the animation of George and The Dragon (as our Literacy topic at that time was Myths and Legends). This can easily be adapted to link with a particular theme or year group.

When developing my children's comprehension skills, I don't like using photocopies from text books and meaningless expectancy sheets. I prefer to use purposeful, educational and REAL LIFE examples to engage and inform them, while still challenging them and looking for those reading skills. Therefore a lot of my comprehension challenges are based around interesting newspaper articles. In this example, taken from 2013, a new map of Pangaea, the supercontinent from 300 million years ago, shows where modern day countries would have been located in the ancient land mass. Included in this pack is a copy of the article and linking comprehension questions suitable for KS2. Enjoy!

I made this resource based on John Lewis' 2012 Christmas advert. It is about a snowman and snowwoman who are made by some children in their garden, but overnight, the snowman disappears. He is seen making an epic journey across mountains, rivers, city centres, and eventually he returns...with the little girl finding that he had bought his snowwoman some christmas presents. I wanted to use it to develop children's inference skills and to develop their description; both of the characters and the various settings that the snowman travelled through. Each KS2 class I've taught have loved this recount. Look out for other Literacy resources I am uploading based on the other John Lewis adverts!

I made this resource based on John Lewis' 2011 Christmas advert. It is about a boy who shows his frustration of having to wait for Christmas Day throughout the video, which most children can emphasise with, until you learn at the end that he was desperate to GIVE his parents their Christmas present! I wanted to use it to develop children's inference skills and to convert the recount of an event into first person; showing their understanding of the character; with of course the description you would expect to bring the story to life. Each KS2 class I've taught have loved this recount. Look out for other Literacy resources I am uploading based on the other John Lewis adverts! UPDATE: The lesson presentation is now available in both Notebook and Powerpoint format in this download.

When I make a good display (and I do like displays!) I like to take photos of it to remember it, to include in my personal profile and to share with others. Why take so much time over something and then take it down, never to be seen again?! A free resource to share as inspiration to others. UPDATED 13/12/16 to include extra Rivers and WII display ideas! UPDATED 09/02/18 to include extra Science display ideas!

As a new supply teacher, I wanted to have a blank document to hand which I could take note of key school information, so that if I returned to provide cover again, I would have all the important information in advance. The sheet allows notes to be taken for the following: School Name: Address: Phone: Email: Head Teacher: Key Contact: Uniform: Computer log-in: Additional Notes: (which I would use to note which class(es) I covered, whether I used my own resources to avoid future repetition, what computer programmes they had - incase my SMART presentations couldn't be used etc etc)

A simple but fun Classroom Objects-themed word search. Could be used at the beginning of a new term, to settle a class in spare time or as a spelling activity. Available in PDF format. Words featured in the puzzle are: BIN, CHAIR, DOOR, PENCIL, SCISSORS, WINDOW, TRAY, CARPET, DESK, GLUE, DISPLAY, BOOK, COMPUTER, RUBBER, SHARPENER, WHITEBOARD, PAPER, RULER, TABLE