This resource is a lesson/series of up to 3 lessons suitable. I believe, for years 6, 7 or 8 depending on the themes you focus on. Children read and analyse a palindrome poem and understand what the word palindrome means. Children are given a template and a guided structured/scaffolded method to come up with their own poems Children write up their poems in presentation form. I have deliberately chosen a topic for the children with statements that they will likely find inflammatory, as this then supports the discussion about these poems being a good vehicle for protest, as they often ridicule insensitive and judgmental statements. Note: You will need to use assessment for learning in the lesson, so that you know no children are left with the misunderstanding that any controversial statements made are supported or true. I hope you find this resource helpful/

I put this together having searched the net and drawn a blank. There are lots and lots of good spy packs for a spy theme on the net. I am theming one of the school’s lock down weeks on the subject of spies, and there is heaps to keep us going (code making, invisible ink writing, time capsule, wax resist painting, to name a few) This worksheet is to print to allow children to create their own spy cover stories, or aliases - I will then ask them to write a diary entry in role to get into character - in the pm we will create the time capsules to preserve our real identities and bury, and at the end of this day, will play the Yes/No game in role as our aliases! Hopefully a lot of fun to be had in tough times. Anyway, in the hope that this saves a few other people time … could easily be used in any literacy lesson when developing a character outside of a spy context. (Just remove the top secret stamp)

A whole English lesson on formal and informal language. I have used versions of this in year 5 and in year 6. There is a very clear explanation of formal and informal language as well as standard and non-standard English. Children are guided through several SATs style questions and then introduced to a written task. They are to re-write a couples draft wedding vows in a more formal style as befits the situation! Fun. A model answer is given. There are usually several questions that require the children to select the most formal sentence in the spelling and grammar SpAG SATs test, and this lesson helps, particularly where practice papers have identified this as an area for improvement. I tend to theme my lessons based on the learning journey or something topical, and this lesson has nods toward the topic of skating and also the Harry Meghan Royal Wedding where I have adapted it for use in both. If there is another big forthcoming celebrity wedding that the children are aware of, it would be worth replacing the names and the photos, once downloaded, to keep in relevant and up to date for the children, but I’m afraid my knowledge of the latest celebrity couple is rather wanting! The resource includes a written plan and LO printout. I hope you enjoy this lesson. It is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but surely that’s the best way to deliver a grammar lesson? Please also note that a percentage of author proceeds from the sale of this product will be given to our partner school in Sierra Leone. To date (Feb 2020) have donated £250 from the proceeds of author sales

Tuesday 21st February is Mardi Gras (Shrove/‘Fat’ Tuesday)! This is a power point resource all about Mardi Gras that includes accompanying activities that can be done afterwards. It is designed as a French lesson, but can easily be used as a whole school assembly, especially in a French-teaching primary school. There are some links to be made with RE and Lent, so it will work especially well in a CE/Catholic primary school teaching French. It is suitable for KS2 or perhaps just lower Key Stage 3. There are already many resources out there on the subject of Easter, but very few on Mardi Gras, which is increasing in popularity in the UK as ‘Fat Tuesday’. The lesson commences with the children analysing 2 photos showing Mardi Gras (carnival) scenes. (A means of activating critical thinking skills) before introducing the lesson as one about Mardi Gras, how it is celebrated and some key vocabulary. The ppt links to a You Tube clip of a parade in Montreal (providing opportunities to discuss French culture around the world). It introduces some key vocabulary, (and can be used as an opportunity to revise colours, days of the week and dates, as they come up, naturally). Possible activities include: -2 word searches using the key vocabulary. One easier, one harder. Reading slide (depending on ability, could be read as a whole class looking for ‘the word that means…’ Recorded audio of the reading slide - you could give the challenge of listening to hear a specific word or phrase. (In the passage, as there are some near-cognate words that are not given in the vocabulary - children have to work out they mean based on how they look, sound or are spelled.) As a creative task, children can design a Mardi Gras mask, and several templates are given. The ppt slides can be printed in A3 when there are 2 per page. To make a larger art/DT project. This provides opportunities for wonderful displays!!! I have seen examples of Mardi Gras displays on the internet, where, having created the masks, the children’s photographs are taken and printed A3 size and the masks stuck over the top of the child’s face on the board - looks amazing! In my school, I haven’t gone that far, but the children were occupied for a whole wet-play, making gold, green and purple paper chains, which I decorated around a notice board, using my ppt slides as information for the mid-section. Sorry, there are no word search answers for the 2nd word search, but you could retain a child’s once they have solved - also, using the word ‘or’ in the word search has resulted in there being several possible answers - I didn’t change it - it’s probably something else of interest that will enable the word to stick in their minds. Please note: Selling resources on TES has enabled me to donate £500 to date to our partner school in Sierra Leone. All author proceeds from this resource will be donated to our partner school, where it is used to buy medicines and period products

Year 4 - Changing States of Matter Practical lesson - used as a hook following Christmas start of new topic - link to food waste - ways to preserve. This is a whole lesson where children make butter by shaking double cream in jars until it first becomes whipped cream and then butter. I prepared it to use in the first week back as a lesson to engage before moving on to solids, liquids and gases. It is an easy and fun practical lesson. This resource comes with a lesson plan, a learning objective table/slip where children are encouraged to link their task to the forthcoming learning by answering two questions about how the liquid cream was different from the solid butter, and a power point presentation - my first slides relate to food waste at Christmas, but this could be easily edited to link to food waste more generally. You will need to provide: several tubs of double cream, jars or lidded plastic tubs to use as shakers, salt, spoons, crackers. I hope you enjoy using this resource and if you could take the time to feed back, I would be grateful.

Mince Pie Mystery Christmas Fun. Someone has stolen the mince pies whilst everyone was in assembly - it is up to the class to turn detective and work out who it was! This is a structured activity suitable for Key Stage two - Years 3, 4 or 5 ideally, to be carried out close to the last few lessons of the term, when typical teaching has stopped and you need something engaging to hold them which has more value than a traditional quiz/Christmas activity. It would work well on Christmas Jumper day or Christmas Dinner day as a break from the usual routine, too. This is designed to take up the session which is typically the maths session, after play, but the skills needed to solve this are cross-curricular. Alternatively, it could end an afternoon session when something out of the ordinary has preceded it, such as a recorder concert/hymn rehearsal/church visit and the children need a highly structured activity to refocus them with the prospect of a treat at the end. Core skills being developed include: Maths- working within time periods and calculating time overlaps, English -reading and making deductions, Logic and Critical Thinking - Eliminating suspects based on cross-referencing given facts, Drama - acting or reading out in role (if you prefer). The lower abilities will simply need more support with the reading element and the deductions, but it would work well in mixed ability groups. The actual culprit is the most obvious one - but that was deliberate so that everyone feels good at the end - even if they couldn’t say with as much certainty why, most children will put their finger on the correct thief. There is an accompanying plan. Slides should ideally be printed and stapled as copies per table: a ‘Clue’ pack, an ‘Evidence’ Pack, Witness Statements, and an elimination sheet. The mystery itself is based on a story my son told me that actually happened at his school with the chocolates in an Advent calendar going missing during play, but I’ve gone for mince pies being stolen- all the better if you can buy a bulk lot of 30 cheaply, leaving tantalisingly on display all morning only to have them suddenly disappear at the start of the lesson - and then all munch on them as a reward once the activity has ended. I hope that the activity is as fun for you as it has been for me to envisage and create. As always, I would appreciated feedback once you have delivered it in class.

Whole lesson (plan and resources) on using algebra to solve a given number problem. This resource has been developed to encourage children to think mathematically about a given problem, use existing number sense and understand how a formula can express a general rule. The learning is tied to a story the children are told about the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, and how he ‘got the better of’ his teacher at the age of ten, having been set the task of adding up all the numbers from 1-100 so the teacher could have a rest. The children are taught how to solve the query by pattern-spotting, making generalisations and finally algebraic expression and then asked to investigate further. Everything is extremely structured/scaffolded. Although it has been labelled as suitable for ‘Upper Primary’ (Years 5 and 6), it is suitable to extend the mathematical thinking of younger children. It is especially ideal for an adult to deliver with a small group of higher-achievers, when something is being done in the classroom they do not need to go over at all. This resource would work best with a whole class if there are other adults available to scaffold the learning as described in the lesson plan. I would be very grateful if you would take the time to feed back, after you have used this resource. Tip: For work in books, print slide 27 at the end of the slideshow in ‘2 slides per page’ mode, and ask children to glue in books, next to their workings out. (Trim into strips to show differentiated tasks.)

This is a whole lesson encouraging children to think critically and evaluate whether the information they see on the internet is real or fake. This resource includes: lesson (or session) plan and an activity. The plan details how to encourage children to think about what we use the internet for, and through the use of classroom clips introduces the idea of fake news. Children are given tips about how to evaluate whether a story etc might be fake or genuine. The activity is to look at a screen shot of a news story/twitter feed/web page/email/viral photo and decide whether it is is real or fake. Children click the answer each time (real or fake) -most are fake - and then there is extra information about how they might have reasoned this, what clues or warnings there were etc. These are mostly real-life examples. Although the activity has been entitled ‘Fake News Spotter’, the scope of the lesson is actually much broader than ‘Fake News’ as it also touches upon scams, trusted sources of information and using the internet for research. Tip: The activity is designed to be completed by the children individually/in pairs in ppt, but if that is not possible, it can be delivered as a whole class activity, or the slides can be printed and children can examine them in groups or pairs and sort them into a pile of ‘real’ or ‘fake’ before the answers are talked through as a whole class. This makes a nice reading-based activity in mixed ability pairs - perfect if there are carousels of activities taking places as part of a whole school approach to Safer Internet Day. I’m really pleased with this lesson which I have used with Year 4. I did notice that, when using the ppt, they all were very keen simply to see if they were correct or incorrect and whizzed through the slides without really reading the important information, so I would advise that you put in place some incentives to ensure that they actually read the slides - perhaps partner has to ask a question based on the content, or each taking it in turns to read the slide aloud before moving on - I had to make at least one quarter of the class go back over it again when finished. I hope you enjoy using this resource - there is so much misinformation out there, even for us adults - anything that helps our young people think more carefully about what they see or share, or how they select what sites they visit, is, in my view, a good thing!

This is a power point that walks children through how to solve missing number pyramids in very simple steps, but has calculations that are a little more difficult than the most basic. (It goes beyond facts within 20, for example, but keeps within 100.) The pyramids themselves are set out at an angle because I created them in Excel - a tip I picked up from another TES user - teaching the children to be familiar with them in this layout, means it can take you seconds to create your own alternative pyramids! I’ve uploaded the spreadsheet so you can do that, if you need more, follow the instructions below: Simply highlight and copy the selection (number) of pyramids you want, then paste them into a new sheet - it will randomly create more with different numbers. I then paste into a document (such as ppt or word) and quickly delete some of the numbers to create missing number pyramids (remembering of course to keep the original for the answers!) You can also change the parameters to make them harder or easier. Anyway, I hope this resource is of some use to you. Happy teaching. I would appreciate you leaving a review. :-)

Thursday 26th September 2024 is the European Day of Languages! This is an assembly that has been prepared to let children know this, and to encourage them to reflect on why there is a special day for languages. It would work well as an introduction to a whole day of European language themed small activities e.g. the lunch menu in other languages/teachers greeting you in other languages. There are opportunities to iterate to children that, even though we are leaving the EU, we are part of Europe, and will still be part of Europe when we leave (Not overtly mentioned - this could be held as a discussion on the ‘Europe’ slides.) It links to what I have called in the presentation ‘British Values’ (but for my school we talk of Core Values) and prompts children to reflect on how learning about another person’s language and culture can link to values such as tolerance. There are links to a clip, where children have to listen for the French speaker saying ‘hello- talk to me’ - as we teach French in our school (simply amend the photo and listen for the language(s) that you teach if it is not French). Later on there are some fun activities, in French, which are appropriate if you do or do not teach French, as ideally, throughout the school day, you would incorporate ways to engage with the other languages spoken in Europe (e.g. am register in Italian, pm register in Spanish - I have chosen French as we teach it in our school and it needs a ‘push/plug’. The material is designed to fill approximately 20 minutes assembly time. If I had more time to fill, I would show one of the excellent French language short animations afterwards, such as Du Tout Cuit I hope you find this resource helpful.

Come on England! We are behind you. Triangular-shaped bunting on a power point to print out for children to colour in. Red coloured pencils at the ready! Hastily put together in time for tomorrow’s game! The alternative activity is to complete the second half of the flag, symmetrically. Would make a lovely classroom/window display if we do manage to get through to the finals! I hope you enjoy using this resource. :-)

A simple resource, children can use when investigating different types of rocks. Using a grid, children can state whether they think a specific rock is e.g. smooth or gritty, layers or no layers, crystals or no crystals. This is a taster, part of a collection of resources based on the Year 3 topic of Rocks and Soils available at: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/rocks-year-3-11910312 I hope you enjoy using this resource.

An introduction to the diet of the ancient Greeks by tasting! This resource can be used at the start of a learning journey on Ancient Greece, to engage, or at the end. I have also used it the day before a ‘Fabulous Finish’ (Ancient Greek Day) where the children dressed in costumes, designed their own Greek pottery and carved in clay, held a mini Olympic games tournament and then marched into a feast, giving due honour to Zeus before eating. It worked well in this manner, because the children were already aware of the types of foods they would be sampling and why. The resource includes: Presentation on the diet of the Ancient Greeks. A printable Menu - edit on the ppt to include the food you have bought Slides to show what foods are going to be sampled A printout where children can rate the food, based on its appearance and texture and taste etc. (Print from ppt) A suggested follow up task - where children design their own menus, of Ancient Greek style food, using effusive persuasive language. All the food types included, are easy to source, and I found Aldi/Lidl extremely good value for 60 pupils. Most children gagged on the anchovies, but it was part of the fun - they all loved the goats cheese/greek yoghurt squeezy honey combo (and some were eating the honey simply on its own!) I hope you enjoy using this resource.

End of term fun. A classroom quiz full of topical and relevant questions. This was lots of fun in the making and I think it will be lots of fun in the doing! This quiz consists of four rounds of 5 questions each. The answers are multiple choice apart from the two bonus rounds. The rounds have been carefully selected to appeal to a wide cross-section of interests and abilities. Each new round is introduced with a sound bite to catch attention and each question also has a sound bite that plays automatically to gain silence, so you can read the question out. The answers are given after each round, groups being asked to swap to mark by passing to the left. The rounds are: Football (World Cup) Strange but True In the News Fads and Crazes The bonuses are pixelated images of famous people, books and films, to identify, some easy some more difficult, and can be done as timed extra rounds, or printed and given to children to do as a less-structured part of the quiz, and a quick break for the adult reading the questions. This quiz is written primarily for a KS2 audience, but could be used for older children, too. I have not had a chance to use this in the classroom, yet, but I did pre-test it on my own (key stage two) son, who loved it, and was begging for more the next day, even writing his own questions. I would appreciate feedback. In the end-of-term spirit, some of the questions are a little ‘colourful’ and be warned - the England chant as a sound bite on one slide will add to that ‘end of term’ vibe. :-) I have included lots of ironic potential answers to keep us quiz masters and mistresses amused, too. I hope you enjoy using this resource.

A moving up day presentation with activity. Children play ‘two truths and a lie’ and then create their own passports to enable them to move up to the next year group. The presentation is a simple powerpoint that you can edit to include the names of the adults in the classroom and create your own “two truths and a lie” facts. I would also add slides about the topics that are covered in the year - it contains screen shots of the activity in order to model to the children what to do. The activity has been been based on a version of a TES recommended resource by tafkam which is excellent, so I can take no credit for the original idea. I have created my own version more suitable for lower Key Stage 2 and hopefully easy to edit to include school logos etc. It should be printed or photocopied double sided. When I have done this activity in the past, I have held onto the children’s passports and returned them to them in the summer, prior to their new moving up day. It’s a nice way to get them to reflect on the year that was, too. (Please note: the photograph on the example is an example of one I created with my son, for fun, not of any pupil I teach! I’ve also blanked out his school logos and school name.) I hope this resource helps you to get to know your new class better!

This is a ppt presentation I have adapted from 2 different free resources downloaded from TES so as to be suitable for primary school aged children. Although not strictly in the National Curriculum at this level, I used it as part of a couple of lessons supporting the LO: Identify how the habitat changes throughout the year, in year 4, as once we had had the initial practice drawing scientific diagrams in the classroom, I could take them into their local habitat, and they could use this skill amongst others, such as identifying creatures/plants in their habitats and photo records etc. I used this in class with a number of objects, such as beautiful feathers, pine cones, geodes, a live spider, and some preserved insects in perspex. Some of the children drew an artistic sketch alongside it in their artists sketchbooks, in 2B pencil to compare how they are similar and different. Acknowledgements to https://www.tes.com/member/mightygus and https://www.tes.com/member/benji5626 for the intial ppts. I would be grateful if you could leave a review if you liked this resource.

This is a whole lesson (ppt, plan and printouts) on creating cinquain poetry. It is scaffolded for children whose own vocabulary might need developing - rather than having to think of words themselves from a limited pool, they read and highlight a piece of descriptive text to pull out powerful vocabulary from this and create their own word bank to use. Works for higher ability, too as they can add their own ideas to the same word bank. I recommend that an adult work with the lower ability readers to understand the text extract when creating the word bank. It would be good as a precursor to creating their own cinquains from scratch on something topical or relevant to a book you are reading in a subsequent lesson. I have chosen one extract from a book about skating, Bubble Wrap Boy, by Phil Earle, and the other has been drafted by me in a similar style. The examples in the slide show and handouts are based on skating - as I had a group of boys quite obsessed with it - who I wanted to make sure enjoyed the poetry. They did. Cinquains are always fun - all the better if they get to copy them up with illustrations, or do them on PCs to get the centering/format correct. I hope you enjoy using this resource.

A ppt to help children identify a sample of 8 rocks/minerals based on their properties. The rocks included are: flint, sandstone, feldspar granite, quartzite, slate, diorite, chalk and galena - but they could be edited to suit the rocks you have available. I would print out the first slide for the table groups, large, and print out the information 2 slides per sheet to accompany the rock samples. Children can physically place their rock samples on the correct rock pictured. This activity would accompany a lesson where children have to sort rocks based on their appearance and properties. https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/compare-and-group-different-kinds-of-rocks-11910312 I would ask children to read the information sheet - if it says it’s a hard rock, they can perform the scratch test and see for themselves if this is true. If it says it is permeable, they can place sample in a beaker of water and look out for bubbles forming on the rock etc. **Note: **Our rock sample kit contained galena already - I have researched carefully, and it is not considered a risk to handle, but I have taken the precaution of asking children not to perform the scratch test on this mineral. (Just in case you were wondering!) I hope this activity is of some help. :-)

This is a resource I created to be able to take the Year 3s beach combing/fossil hunting on a shingle beach on the SE coast. Whilst our beach does have some amazing fossils, the area was deemed too unsafe to go to, as access is tough and the cliffs are unstable, so instead I needed to research what the children were most likely to be able to find on a typical shingle beach (flint and chert) away from the cliffs. I have chosen to introduce only what I suspect the children might have luck in finding, and also included some information about quartz in pebbles (geodes), as these can be found. We will tie it in with a visit to a local museum to see and handle some real fossils, and it should make for a nice summer outing. This ppt is meant to be able to be used as an introduction, prior to a beach hunt (ideally with your own examples gathered in a pre-visit) Children will ideally receive instruction before or after on the formation of fossils. When I use it, I will take care to ensure the children know that we are relying on speculation, assumption and deduction, and all fossils would really require expert identification to be sure what they actually are. The ppt is not long, but does represent hours of painstaking research! It’s so hard to wade through the higher brow guides to get to the basics. I’ve included a .pdf that can be used as a guide in situ. I hope you will find it useful. If you like this resource you may also like my resources on comparing and sorting different rock types. https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/compare-and-group-different-kinds-of-rocks-11910312 or Rock Identification (free) https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/what-s-my-rock-or-mineral-11912410

Whole lesson Year 3. Meets National Curriculum Objective: compare and group together different kinds of rocks on the basis of their appearance and simple physical properties. This lesson has been prepared as an exciting practical start to the topic of rocks and soils - ideal for the first lesson in a unit of work. This resource pack includes: Lesson plan Lesson presentation Printed activity/recording sheet Printed learning objective Rock name labels (editable) Name that rock printout - (identification chart) for help identifying the rock as an alternative to pre-labelling. Children are given an input based on properties of different materials and are then asked to consider the properties of different rocks, by examining them. After that they decide how to sort/group them, based on the properties they have just observed. I’ve delivered this lesson for two years without the slide show and the printouts, and I know it will be better for it - the children always enjoy it, regardless - and it enthuses them for the rest for the topic - this is simply tightening/smartening up. Tip: If you are spending the whole afternoon on the activity, use setting circles/hoops and encourage children to create physical Venn diagrams with the rock samples, according to their own sorting criteria written onto post-it notes (as in the last slides of the slide show). Please note: you will need access to rock samples to deliver this lesson - I have left editable boxes on the rock labels, as well as including the most likely to be used rocks. (I selected 7 types that could be gathered together fairly easily) I hope you enjoy using this resource. I would be grateful if you could leave a review.