82 Literacy Starters - Over 300 differentiated activities!

This powerpoint contains 82 literacy starters, each one differentiated three ways and most also including an extension challenge - a total of over 300 activities! With the exception of the ‘lipograms’, these activities are all ‘open-ended’, i.e, pupils do not ‘finish’ them. This makes them ideal for morning ‘welcome’ time (for schools that do this), where pupils arrive at different times. Equally, they can be used as regular lesson starters. Nothing needs printing for any of the activities, you literally just put the slide up on your smartboard and off you go!

The file comprises the following challenges:

• Slides 2-18: ‘Word Chains’ (Y1-6) This can be good practice for pupils’ dictionary use skills - can they find a word that begins with the last letter(s) of the previous word? How long can they then make this word chain before they run out of words?
• Slide 19: ‘Alphabet Sentences’ (Y1-6) A great activity for assessing how well pupils grasp what constitutes a sentence, as well as extending their vocabulary. This activity challenges pupils to create sentences where the words start with consecutive letters of the alphabet.
• Slides 20-46: ‘Lipograms’ (Y4-6) Ideal for practice in using a thesaurus and extending pupils’ vocabulary, as well as assessing their sense of poetic rhythm and word choice. These activities provide a short poem with a particular theme (e.g ‘water’, ‘Spring’, ‘The Future’, etc.) and challenge pupils to re-write it with the rule that one letter is ‘forbidden’! Note: some of these are harder than others, so choose carefully when first introducing the idea!
• Slides 47-62: ‘Starts and Ends’ (Y2-6) A chance for pupils to build vocabulary and practice dictionary use, this time in a slightly more competitive way! The starting and ending letters of words are provided, pupils need to think of and write down the longest words they can find/think of with those starting and ending letters.
• Slides 63-74: ‘9 Letter Challenge’ (Y1-3) Useful for practicing phonics for spelling with simpler words. This activity challenges pupils to make as many words as they can using the provided letters. Note: These only have 2-way differentiation (plus an extension challenge)
• Slides 75-83: Christmas Specials! These are versions of the above challenges for the festive season, complete with suitably cheesy xmas graphics!