One of the most powerful protest songs ever written! More remarkable that Nina wrote this in barely an hour! A great listening activity on its own before leading into deeper discussions about: Social justice Prejudice Discrimination Racism Civil rights US history Protest songs The power of music/words #socialjustice #blackhistory #civilrights #protest

A classic song from the legend that is Nina Simone! This song can be used a simple listening activity before leading on to deeper discussions about such issues as: Social justice Racial equality Civil rights Gender equality Black history Prejudice and discrimination The power of music/protest songs #racialjustice #socialjustice #equality #strongwomen #protest

A great song from the legend that is Nina Simone. This could be used as a simple listening activity, ideal for music class or practising English listening skills. This comes with an answer sheet for your convenience. The themes covered in the song - racial prejudice, the fight for racial equality, US history, the civil rights movement, the change in language, etc - mean it would be a greater starter to deeper discussions. #blackhistory #civilrights #genderequality #racism #racialequality #socialjustice #blm

An example of a letter written by a member of the teaching staff to the head of school - trying to persuade the head of school/principal to give the students extra recess time each day. The letter example gives 3 reasons, cites real evidence, and uses persuasive (emotive) language. There are 7 questions about the letter for the students to work through to check for understanding and think about the language being used and how it has been carefully organised.

A simple narrative writing starter about a haunted house. Students edit/fill in the gaps to bring the story to life and make it their own! This is a great way to practice narrative/creative writing while learning/reinforcing parts of speech/similes.

Two wonderful songs sang by Nina Simone - both related to black history month and issues of discrimination, racism and inequality. One song - Missisippi Goddam - was very controversial for the time. The lyrics express her anger, especially at recent atrocities committed against black people in some Southern states. at the time. To be free is a classic expressing the desire to have freedom and equality. Both songs allow for listening activities before a wider discussion. These songs and the themes raised in the lyrics are ideal for Black History Month discussions and music and history lessons.

Simple daily routine (differentiated) to help children work on time and the language associated with describing their daily routine. Also includes blank clock faces and clock faces with some hands drawn to help practice telling the time. After completing their daily routine, I have the children act it out in pairs/threes with a clock - something they really enjoy.

A great maths resource that includes 10 different challenges/lessons based on exploring our world. Students get to learn about our World while practicing maths skills including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, number, negative numbers, calculating averages and data handling. Special lessons/challenges include work on the continents of the World, famous explorers, the World’s highest mountains, the World’s largest lakes, the World’s longest rivers, the whales of Antarctica, Africa’s deadliest animals and even a lesson on the creature with the most painful sting - the bullet ant! The resource includes several videos to accompany some of the lessons.

This is a complete play/show I wrote from scratch that could be used for an assembly or end of year stage performance. It connects the themes of Earth and the Solar System/Space with the performing arts and includes an originally written song based on Nina Simone’s - Ain’t Got No. I have made a video with lyrics and the karaoke version of the song to make it easier for the children to learn. The moral of the play is about being ‘yourself’. It is therefore as much about social and emotional health as science. My children performed it last summer and it got rave reviews - to quote the head of school - “It was the best assembly I’ve seen in my decade as a school head”. The children made the roles their own and added a lot of the ideas during class discussions (e.g. using a hula hoop for Saturn, or doing a cartwheel for Uranus). For the song, the children also improvised the actions for the different lyrics - again this was a big part of the learning (we were doing a performing arts unit so working on improvising moves to words/choreography was part of this). While my students were Grade 3 (8-9), this play would definitely work with older children too. After all, the play is just the idea - it is the actors that bring it to life and make it their own!

An inquiry-based template. Using the kidshealth website and search function, students work individually or in pairs/threes to research the different food groups and fill in the necessary information in the table. A specially-made food label reading comprehension activity (can be completed as a whole class/in pairs or individually).

This is an educational slide-show presentation that covers the history and basics of both rugby and the rugby world cup. It also contains some simple maths questions before ending with 3 differentiated maths challenges based on point-scoring in rugby. Having the children working in pairs/groups to solve the problems over 1-2 classes is an idea. The questions allow for exploration and different perspectives. These slides can easily be shortened or adapted to suit different ages and abilities. The second slides contain some of the first games of the competition score breakdowns with the scores hidden. This is a great maths warmer activity (working out the scores). Following on from that a simple introduction to formula writing and algebra is included.

A simple game to help students practise using adding, subtraction and working with number. All they need is 2-3 dice and a pen to record scores. I laminated these so they could use quick wipe markers to record their workings and calculate their scores as they played. A ‘How to Play’ section is included on the game sheet to help with understanding. This game can be differentiated by allowing for higher starting scores (201, 301, 401 and 501). The option to use 2 or 3 dice also allows for differentiation - rearranging 2 digit numbers or 3-digit numbers and subtracting them from 3-digit numbers. I let my Year 4/Grade3 students self-differentiate and after a little pre-teaching of how to play they found it very easy to follow.

I made the link between boxing and writing. When trying to persuade we need to not only put forward our strongest 2-3 arguments (throw our strongest 2-3 punches), we also need to defend ourselves against any opponent's argument (block) and then say why it isn't a good enough reason against our argument (counter punch). This simple plan really helped my students work out what exactly they were arguing for and against and how to formulate a counter argument. The boxing analogy - which we acted out - really helped them understand what a counter-argument actually was. I had my class of 8 year old kids in Japan write a persuasive argument in favour of a chosen energy source with a counter argument. This was not an easy task - the fact they all managed to achieve the end goal was in large part to the solid foundations this plan gave them.

A simple website research/inquiring challenge - students use the Ducksters website to help answer the questions. First I introduced the topic of the Industrial Revolution (Our unit of study is on Technology so I felt this is an era of history that needs to be taught as it changed our World). I had my class (Grade 3) do this using one Chrome book between 2 but it would work just as well as an individual research activity. The questions were written to not only improve reading skills, but also encourage some deeper thinking of the impact of this significant era in history.

Children used the Ducksters website page about the life of Helen Keller to complete a specially-made informational poster about her life. The activity challenged their research/inquiring skills while helping them to learn all about this remarkable woman.

A PowerPoint of activities based on communities and cities/urbanisation. This includes: Pictures of various communities (rural, urban and suburban) that can be used for a warmer quiz introducing the subject of different communities. Smaller versions of each picture (4 x one page) which can be printed out and used for sorting activities (I had 3 teams sort them and make a poster using them to compare characteristics of the 3 different types of community at the start of my unit on communities). A maths lesson on rounding which compares 5 large cities. This was used to raise awareness of the rapid increase in urbanisation across the world. A table for students to organise their rounded figures and fill in information about each city. Pictures of each city - printed and used by the students to complete their table. The students then used their tables to make bar charts comparing the population of the 5 featured cities.

Simple maths lesson used when learning about mountaineering as part of my PYP Unit on Exploration. The questions challenge all and include questions that practice many different maths skills: Comparison and ordering of 4-digit numbers Adding two 4-digit numbers together Adding five 2-digit numbers together Subtracting 4-digit numbers from one another Finding averages (using a calculator) As an extension I had the children round numbers to the nearest 100m and 1000m.

Eight writing genre headers to display around the classroom underneath an example of each piece of student work. Below is a simple example of each in a few sentences based on a stretch my class learned in their P.E class. The children sorted the short pieces of writing by pairing them with each of the 8 writing genres. This was a great activity to get them to think about the different writing genres we will be working on this year and how each is different.

Powerpoint Presentation on the benefits of being vegetarian. This thorough account is a good way to show the class persuasive arguing/create debate and discussion, etc.

This persuasive writing piece models for students how to lay out a simple persuasive argument about something they all have an opinion on - recess/play! After the reading are some questions to check for understanding about the arguments made and the layout used by the writer. Finally, it gives the opportunity for students to express their own opinion and give reasons for their choice. I used this soon after introducing persuasive writing to my class. After they returned late from recess we had a class discussion about whether extending recess was a good or bad idea. I think introduced the idea of persuasion before giving them this example of a piece of persuasive writing. It was interesting to see if they came up with the same/different arguments I made in my written argument for having extended recess.