I created these presentations/resources for my class as a series of cross curricular lessons on minibeasts. The resource bundle has simple and appealing presentations to introduce minibeasts and food chains. I have included tasks and active learning throughout the presentations. I feel that young learners benefit from clear and concise minibeast facts as many of the relevant non fiction texts are too difficult for early readers to access. The Butterfly Presentation includes: simple factual information about butterflies to read and discuss opportunities to build up important ‘butterfly’ vocabulary before writing ( mini whiteboard task) factual writing task with sentence stems a labelling task and life cycle sequencing task ‘butterfly’ poems to read, enjoy, discuss and perform simple ‘draw a butterfly’ task & alternative ‘cut and stick’ task The Spider presentation includes: simple factual information about spiders to read and discuss opportunities to build up important ‘spider’ vocabulary before writing (mini whiteboard task) factual writing task with sentence stems a labelling task ( spider’s body) ‘spider’ poems to read, enjoy, discuss and perform simple art lesson for a spider web The Minibeast Poetry presentation provides an opportunity for learners to compose a minibeast poem. It details the structure of the poem and has appealing graphics and suggestions to aid composition. In addition, there is a basic introduction to food chains with pupil tasks. Links are also provided throughout all the presentations to appropriate minibeast songs/stories that enhance and enrich the learners’ experience as well as active tasks/games e.g. complete the food chain. Finally, some more general resources are included on living & non-living things and a ‘roll a dice’ task (minibeast body parts) which would be an ideal starting point for very young learners. Would be delighted if you could leave feedback.

These resources deal with both seasons: Autumn and Winter. The engaging, colourful PowerPoint presentation introduces each season clearly with opportunities to gain knowledge, reflect and complete a variety of accompanying tasks. There are also online links provided to consolidate and enhance the learning and appreciation of our natural world. I have provided worksheets ( Microsoft Word) that are linked to each task. The tasks include: design an autumn outfit use ‘autumn’ colours to shade a variety of leaves label a bear classify animals that migrate/adapt/hibernate label winter animals enjoy an autumn poem and answer questions ( oral or written response) listen to a wonderful winter story and reflect on characters and actions follow an online tutorial to draw a winter tree ( easy version) the last slide provides online links to videos which will further enhance the children’s knowledge of seasonal changes. These can be used as a starter /plenary or a teacher may choose to show segments of the videos.