Young children will enjoy colouring in this lively natural scene, and identifying insects and other crawly creatures as they work. They will develop colour awareness, fine motor skills and an understanding of the minibeasts and their natural environment, as they bring the picture alive with their own creative input.

This rhyme bank and examples page will provide all the back-up you need to concoct verses about castle characters with your class. There are rhyme lists for King, Queen, Knight, Prince, Princess and Ghost, with an example verse for each on the next page. Tips for presenting and guiding are also provided. Bring history alive by inventing funny, crazy, spooky or beautiful rhyming couplets (or more) about the people who lived in our ancient castles, or bring your literacy or poetry lesson alive this way. I introduce rhymes like these in my poetry workshops, adapting the presentation to suit the different literacy levels. It’s an activity that gets everyone hooked.

This space rocket is shooting through a busy part of space, with planets, stars, sun, moon and a shooting star around it. Its three windows show an astronaut waving, a curtained window and one with a dog looking out. It’s a picture full of fun, inspiration, and interesting shapes to colour.

A beautiful butterfly picture to colour. This clear but intricately patterned butterfly offers exciting colouring opportunities. An attractive activity for young children, helping development of colour sense, fine motor control, and understanding of the natural world. Supports work on seasons, mini-beasts, animals, colour and more.

Emergent and newly independent writers will enjoy thinking up describing words to write on the swirly, little lines on their cloud. Think up some together first, e.g. - fluffy, puffy, white, grey, floaty, soft, light, high, drifting, quiet, slow, pink, dark, stormy, woolly, silky, silver, whirly, swirly or candy floss. Here’s a published poem of mine about clouds on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EOKVIktMh10 Let children sound out the words, whether or not correctly, to sustain flow and build confidence. See my other weather writing frames, including harder version of this: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/weather-poetry-bundle-ks1-11974784

A beautiful, calming snow scene to write on, following the snow’s gentle curves. The starter phrases invite describing words and similes.

Dinosaurs are exciting to write about, especially when you invent your own! This accessible, illustrated creative writing frame comes in easy and harder versions, for approx. Yrs 2 - 4. Supports Dinosaurs and related topics, and Literacy too. Get your whole class writing with enthusiasm and expression, while thinking and learning about the prehistoric world too!

This sheet combines poetry-writing with emotional outlets, supporting Literacy and PSHE simultaneously. If sadness, happiness, excitement, and one emotion to choose, were sounds, what would they be? Suggestions are provided on the Example Sheet, which will support teacher and pupils alike, also offering prompts for a warm-up discussion about feelings and what they’re like. This resource would support anti-bullying drives and other social issues, as well as providing openings for maturing children and teens to explore and share their own feelings and moods. The metaphors invited will stretch creative writing techniques at the same time. Encourage embellishments, such as adjectives and onomatopoeia.

Children love this activity. Dragons can be sizzling-hot, ice-cold, fierce, friendly, clumsy, graceful - whatever the individual child wants them to be, and their exciting features, shown in the illustration, are sure to trigger a colourful array of possibilities, as your class dash down their descriptive word ideas on the lines. They’ll need to turn the sheet round as they go to follow the line angles - adding to the fun! Encourage able writers to add in similes under the lines, as demonstrated in the accompanying guide. Suggestions are provided there for warm-up and follow-on activities, as well as for words. See my other resources for more dragon-focused activities and supporting posters.

This simple game spurs children to read or sound out the 7 words, so they can link them (by pen, pencil or finger) to the correct picture representation below. Some of the words also feature in my ‘Seaside Findings’ phonics game; using both in quick succession will reinforce learning. Suitable for all KS1 and Reception/EY. Able children can add further words and pictures, or write a follow-on sentence about something they have found at the seaside. Younger children can identify initial letters and their phonics, guessing words they can’t yet read, with the help of the pictures. This resource also supports seaside and ocean studies. VIDEO INSPIRATION x 2 (author speaking and reading her poems about seaside wonders): https://photos.app.goo.gl/wkeZ8K6iCfcFQneZ9 + https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMarEm9uVBDEGPTykSlkAfT6jdVArKlPen6X5lk1le7dqUc89gEztNjSO7V6qsxUQ?key=X0hIWmdaV1M0Q2lHYURKbDdIVFFPMTVBTWRUdkhn

This is a reading, writing and word-picture linking activity for young children, with example sheet. The three animal words, dog, cat, hen, are presented next to jumbled pictures of them. The challenge is to sound out the words and link them, with a pencil, to the correct picture. The pale letters can also be over-written, for hand-writing practice, and to consolidate the sounding out findings. This resource adds extra meaning and fun to early literacy lessons. Fun cat music! Do listen (free) to this delightful, jazzy cat movement music, by a favourite composer of mine - for all ages! https://soundcloud.com/rhodri-williams-wandoch/watching-the-cat

FIREWORKS picture poem writing sheets - easier/harder, for Reception, Yr 1, lower Yr2, plus YouTube demo, full of ideas! Large, clear firework pattern to colour in, with line(s) inviting describing word and more. See also my higher level firework sheets. Supports creative writing, inspires enthusiasm and confidence in writing, develops artistic skills and colour sense, enhances understanding of fireworks, provides relaxing, calming activity.

Space topic and literacy are both enhanced with this exciting, fun activity. The starry space photo has 8 gaps for inserting exciting, descriptive words and phrases about space. A gap-free version of the picture is included for inspiration. The supporting** Word + simile Bank** is for teacher use, offering handy examples and prompts. I have many other space/literacy resources at my shop.

This guided **‘Stormy Sea’ writing sheet is an exciting! With video How-to. Children love writing their simile ideas for a stormy sea on these wavy lines, as confirmed time and again in my Stormy Sea poetry sessions. Suggestions for teacher introduction and prompts are given in the accompanying guide sheet. the repeated phrase - The sea went… is followed by a wavy line for action words and description (rolling, roaring, wildly charging like an angry beast on the loose?). The poem ends calmly, inviting a simile for a peaceful sea. Yrs 3-6. **SEE ALSO - ** TREASURE MAP alliteration game - https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/treasure-map-alliteration-game-yr1-6-guide-for-use-11887395 (popular) PLUS - SEA SIMILES (summer sea) -** https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/sea-similes-poem-frame-illustrated-12100413** .

2 FIREWORKS frames - simpler and more complex versions. These popular sheets call for action words - whizzing, booming, sparkling, crackling? - and more, for fireworks. Both sheets also invite describing words for the night sky - dark, misty, moonlit, mysterious, pitch black, spooky, foggy, windy, chilly, cave-dark?? The harder version also requires 3 similes, but the structure is clear, with a repeated pattern running through, and structured phrases with gaps to fill. Supports: seasons, celebrations, literacy, poetry, creativity, vocabulary, colour, night skies and firework features.

‘Fireworks’ - an exciting firework poem by this author - published children’s poet - on firework photo background. Celebrates the thrills, beauties, sounds and wonders of fireworks. Read out to your class, invite variations, and set as format for poetry-writing challenge. See my many other FIREWORKS reading/writing/colouringhttps://www.tes.com/resources/search/?authorId=23864398&q=fireworks&shop=katewilliams_poetry, +support video included with this download.

Great for St David’s Day dragon writing! Watch out for the ________ dragon! This exciting writing sheet starts. It’s as ___ as a ___ (perhaps hot as a volcano or red as a ripe tomato). Two more open similes follow, then two lines for features details, an action line - 'He goes__ ing __ ’ (perhaps gliding through the sunset to his secret cave, or cartwheeling over the mountaintops, or flame-blasting through your classrooms). The last line is always a favourite in this tried and tested sheet: His favourite food is __ ’ . Recommended for lower juniors. Supports Literacy, particularly poetry, creativity and vocabulary-stretching; also enriching Myths & Legends studies.

Ocean rhyming words + example 2-line couplets - handy prompts and examples for class poetry-writing on sea themes. Two sheets to download, each backed with ocean photo: Sheet 1 offers paired rhyming words relevant to the sea, e.g. tide/wide, swishy/fishy, exciting/inviting. Sheet 2 offers examples of full rhyming couplets with some of the word pairs, e.g. Deep and wide, tilting with the tide. Display, photocopy as a hand-out, or just quote words and rhymes from the lists, to spur more ideas. See also my seaside word and simile lists and many other sea-themed resources.

These attractive star pictures are fun to write in, and there are plenty of straight lines to write on - shooting in all directions. The variations are graded in difficulty, with increasing opportunities for words and similes, the hardest having three descriptive lines to complete below, about stars, sky and space. Colouring possibilities are wide open. Recommended approach: first, in a wide space, ‘be’ stars with your group, pointing, shooting, whirling, glowing, winking, blinking, dancing, spinning. Then prompt for verbs like these, and adjectives, such as spiky, sharp, peaceful, gentle, high up, twinkly, pretty, delicate, dainty, tiny - and different colours. The similes are for sparkly stars and dark space. The 3-sheet resource has been used with rewarding results in my workshops. They are hand-drawn and home-produced, so don’t expect perfect symmetry!

Motivate your class to get up and moving with this punchy, inspiring rhyme. Why miss out on all the fun? It asks, encouraging standing rather than sitting, and running rather than walking, to keep fresh, smart, trim and slim. The rhyme is in two verses, with different styles. You could use them separately as two different rhymes. Act them out and develop with stretches, runs, jumps, spins and anything else the children suggest.