A teacher and tutor with more than thirty years' experience working in both mainstream and independent schools. I have an Honours degree in English Literature and Linguistics from UEA and have written a dissertation about encouraging children to write. I am a mother of three and interested in all things green. I am in the process of setting up my TES shop and hope to launch my "Spagbag" resources which are suitable for both Primary and Secondary aged pupils.
A teacher and tutor with more than thirty years' experience working in both mainstream and independent schools. I have an Honours degree in English Literature and Linguistics from UEA and have written a dissertation about encouraging children to write. I am a mother of three and interested in all things green. I am in the process of setting up my TES shop and hope to launch my "Spagbag" resources which are suitable for both Primary and Secondary aged pupils.
I have bundled four resources together which will provide valuable material when it comes to answering context questions when studying Victorian novelists such as Dickens. The resources include key themes of the Victorian novel, how Christmas was made so popular by Dickens' work and how Christmas has become so commercialised today and has lost its true meaning. Included also is a poetry analysis of No! which depicts an enveloping smog, so evocative of Victorian London.
This power point is intended to inspire children to expand their sentences using adjectives. I used crystals as a starting point and asked the children to pass round four or five different types of crystal and think of a describing word. From the list of words we then expanded into sentences. From the sentences we expanded into a story about being lost in a cave. I encouraged the children to use all five senses to bring their descriptions to life.
I include a more general spelling, grammar and punctuation quiz in which adjectives feature. All answers included.
This resource is suitable for ages 6+
This power point tests knowledge of apostrophes, forming plurals and the opposites of adjectives using the correct prefix. Students are also required to rewrite a weirdly worded paragraph so that it makes perfect sense. Answers are provided.
I include a resource which encourages pupils to use a wider range of punctuation.
The tasks can be easily differentiated according to ability. Suitable for ages 10+
This power point resource can be used to test pupils' knowledge of homophones, adding prefixes to form opposites, using commas, alphabetical ordering and much more besides. There is a passage to perfect with deliberate errors such as missing punctuation and capital letters.
This is one of many similar quizzes in my shop which can be used in rotation to test different aspects of spelling, grammar and punctuation on a regular basis.
Suitable for ages 10+
This power point takes a look at verbs and requires students to identify verbs, change verbs into the past tense and also to select the correct verbs to make a passage make sense.
This resource will be useful when revising verbs and tenses.
I include a more general quiz on spelling, punctuation and grammar where verbs feature in one section. All answers are provided.
Suitable for ages 8+
This power point is a simple narrative about a hamster called Spock. Pupils are required to read the short story and then answer the related questions. They are required to use dictionary skills to define trickier words from the story. The pupils are then required to choose an option to write about: describe their ideal pet or design a des res for a hamster like Spock.
I include an extra revision aid which could be used to strengthen writing skills and provides an opportunity for descriptive writing concerning animals and pets.
This resource is suitable for ages 7+
This power point resource tests the students' knowledge of speech marks, question marks, masculine and feminine nouns and the past tense. The students also have a paragraph to perfect with punctuation marks. Answers are given.
This resource will be useful for revision purposes and the questions can be easily differentiated . It is suitable for ages 8+ depending on ability.
I include a resource which encourages pupils to extend their range of punctuation marks and another which leads to more extended passages and descriptive writing.
This power point requires the students to supply missing apostrophes, the correct homophone, add prefixes to form the opposite, to organise alphabetically and to decipher a weirdly worded passage.
This is intended to be used when revising different aspects of grammar , punctuation and spelling in general. Answers are provided.
Suitable for ages 10+
I have bundled together three quizzes which test various aspects of spelling, grammar and punctuation. As they are in a similar format they can be easily rotated on a regular basis and tweaked to suit the needs of the students. Answers are provided.
Suited to ages 8+
This Power Point tests knowledge of hear and here, pronouns, apostrophes, prefixes to form opposites, homophones and alphabetical ordering. There are some deliberate errors to spot and correct in a passage at the end.
This is one of a series of similar quizzes to be found in my shop that can be used on a regular basis to test knowledge and understanding of different aspects of grammar and punctuation.
I include an extra resource where knowledge of grammar can be tested and writing skills honed.
Answers are included. Suitable for ages 10+
This Power Point contains ten slides reminding pupils how to write an argumentative response. The use of rhetorical questions, statistics, emotive language and logical structure are encouraged amongst other techniques. Finally students are required to produce either a leaflet arguing against animal testing or a letter supporting testing cancer drugs on rats.
I include a resource which includes mixed grammar revision and an opportunity to describe a favourite animal or pet.
This resource is suitable for pupils aged 12+
This Power Point comprises twelve slides which will test students' knowledge of subordinating conjunctions, imperatives, active and passive sentences, prefixes to form opposites, identifying metaphors and similes and much more besides.
There is a strangely worded passage to correct and a useful mnemonic to help with a tricky spelling.
Answers are provided. This resource is one in a series of similar resources which can be found in my shop which can be used on a rotational basis for revision purposes.
I include a resource which encourages the use of a wider range of punctuation.
Suitable for ages 10+
This bundle comprises three quizzes which will test the knowledge of various aspects of spelling , grammar and punctuation and can be rotated regularly whenever extra revision is needed.
This Power Point tests understanding of its and it's, subordinate clauses, tenses that agree with each other, prefixes to form opposites, alphabetical ordering and much more besides. This is one in a series of similar quizzes which can be used to check knowledge and understanding of different aspects of grammar and spelling. There is a weirdly worded passage to decipher at the end. Answers are provided and where they are not, it is intended that students read out their own examples with suitable choices.
I include a resource which encourages pupils to include a wider range of punctuation in their writing.
Suitable for ages 10+
This Power Point resource looks at literary techniques and presentational devices. Pupils are asked to consider the tools a writer has at his or her disposal to create an effect. Pupils are asked to write definitions of various techniques and to provide their own examples. They will also need to sort terms into groups: linguistic feature or presentational device? Finally students are required to use their knowledge to create a leaflet or write a film review.
It would be useful to provide each group with an array of printed materials such as magazines, newspapers, promotional leaflets etc so that students can hunt for examples to match the terminology. Students need to be already familiar with an array of different terminology such as oxymoron, hyperbole, juxtaposition and more besides.
This resource is intended as a revision tool and is suitable for ages 12+
This Power Point tests knowledge of there and their, knowledge of speech marks and commas , homophones, the use of prefixes to form opposites, alphabetical ordering, identifying deliberate mistakes and much more. Pupils are required to perfect a weirdly worded passage. Answers are provided.
This resource is suitable for ages 10+ and is ideal for revision purposes.
This bundle contains four resources aimed at improving writing skills. Students will learn how to appreciate the tools writers use to create an effect, how to vary the length and type of sentence so that it suits its purpose and how to write an argumentative piece of their own based on animal testing.
Suitable for 12+
This animated Power Point takes five extracts from J'K'Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and asks students to identify deliberate spelling mistakes. The answers will magically appear. One of the extracts has punctuation removed and requires the students to re-write the dialogue between Harry and Sirius Black, inserting the correct punctuation.
Finally, inspired by the passages they have read, pupils are required to split into houses to perform their own writing challenge. They can choose from writing a review of a lesson from a student teacher who can transform into an animal of his own choosing, a report of a Quidditch match, an argument about how Harry's parents died or a descriptive piece about the discovery of an invisibility cloak.
This resource will prove useful when revising aspects of spelling and punctuation and will inspire the writing of reviews and reports in particular. Included is an informative resource about the development of the racing broom for Quidditch enthusiasts.
Suitable for pupils aged 10+
This animated Power point examines four different sentence types: simple, complex, compound and minor. Pupils are given examples of how sentence structure might differ according to the intended audience. Later they are given examples of how sentence structure might differ according to the effect an author is trying to achieve.
Finally students are asked to discuss the sentence structures found in an extract taken from a crime novel: M.J. Arlidge's Eeny Meeny.
I include a resource which requires students to demonstrate their knowledge of punctuation by inserting a range of punctuation in lengthier paragraphs as well as allowing them to show off their own descriptive writing skills by describing someone they admire.
This resource is suitable for audiences aged 10+
This bundle of Harry Potter themed resources will give a new twist to grammar lessons as the exercises are based on the Prisoner of Azkaban story. A more general quiz is included for good measure.
Students can test their knowledge and will hopefully be inspired to widen their reading as they dip into passages written by J.K.Rowling.
Suitable for ages 10+