This lesson was used to round off Term 1 after using How to Train your Dragon as our class reader and as a stimulus for a unit of writing. During this afternoon, children chose which activities they liked and created work based on what they enjoyed in the book. Designed using a Voices for Choices approach this resource shares varied ideas based on different skills i.e. writing, art, design etc.

Used as part of Children’s Mental Health Week, our Year 4 classes all participated in a Reading For Pleasure live session where they shared their favourite books, made recommendations and discussed story lines and their likes and dislikes. This lesson could be used across Key Stage 2 and supports the reading for pleasure strands of the National Curriculum.

This is a big hit with Year 4 at Christmas! With over 30 questions, this resource is a week’s worth of whole class Guided Reading. Using DERIC as a question frame, the questions in this resource are centered around retrieval, explain and interpret / inference. A great resource to teach fundamental Reading skills while making it fun and engaging with a lovely Christmas story.

This resource is a week’s worth of planning that I use in our final week of school to enjoy whole class Guided Reading in a fun way while still promoting those fundamental reading skills. Questions are appropriate for Year 4 but this resource could easily be adapted across Key Stage 2. Questions framed around DERIC: Decode Explain Retrieve Infer / Interpret Choice

Complete Year 4 Guided Reading resource using DERIC questioning to match National Curriculum expectations for KS2. Week long, stand alone unit.

This week long whole class guided reading resource is based on the Lighthouse short animation that is available on You Tube. We have used this animation many times in Year 4 and it goes beautifully alongside our other lighthouse resources so be sure to have a look in the shop to truly maximise your cross curricular links with Science, DT and English! Using DERIC as a frame for questioning (Decode, Explain, Retrieve, Infer / Interpret / Choice), this resource matches the National Curriculum content domains set out for KS2. With a heavy focus on inference and deduction skills, this resource is perfect for a Year 4 class but could also be used for Year 5 to strengthen their inference skills. A true hit with my class for both reading and writing lessons!

This unit is a series of 11 lessons teaching the children the story of Shackleton’s expedition using the book Ice Trap! These lessons have been used for live learning and have given opportunities for modeled and shared writing, editing, creative writing and developing the use of first person, FANTASTICs and using emotions in our writing.

Diary of a Cornflake Diary Writing unit. I created these resources to use in the classroom however, they would also make an excellent unit for live learning. Included is a sequence of 10 lessons including exploring new vocabulary, sequencing events, describing a setting, the big write lessons with some modeled paragraphs and editing sessions embedding in each big write. Here is a break down of each lesson included: Talk Treasure Chest - exploring adventurous vocabulary to include in this piece of writing. Sequencing key events in the journey of the digestive system and creating a cartoon strip. How to describe a setting using Jane Considine’s FANTASTIC tool. Setting the scene - exploring how and when people write their diaries. The opening paragraph - the beginning of the story with teacher example to set the scene. Writing paragraph 3 including modeled paragraph, editing section and checklist for writing. Writing paragraph 4 including editing example and checklist. Writing up in best lesson which encourages children to practice and perfect their handwriting. This unit was planned and used by me and is a great unit of writing to get children hooked and enthusiastic about the digestive system - a simple but effective way to show writing across the curriculum. All resources supporting this writing unit are included.

This is a series of 10 lessons teaching students hoe to write a survival guide linked to Shackleton’s adventure across Antarctica. This unit works really well with my other unit of work Shackleton’s Diary Writing. This series of lessons includes exploring adventurous vocabulary, exploring the packing list, writing topic sentences, researching survival information and features modeled paragraphs of each of the subheadings. This unit worked really well for live lessons.

2/3 week Guided Reading unit based on Ice Trap! the story sharing Shackleton’s expedition story across Antarctica. This resource includes pages taken from the picture book for children to examine the text and illustrations. Questions framed using the DERIC approach, matched to end of Key Stage expectations.

Complete Year 4 Guided Reading teaching resource using DERIC to frame the questions around the National Curriculum expectations. This resource is a 2 week unit of half an hour lessons. Could be used for live lessons. Although this was planned for Year 4 the texts are quite challenging so could be used for Year 5 or a low Year 6 group focusing on vocabulary. In this unit we examined and focused on vocabulary choices and challenging texts. Works really well alongside the Spooky Writing English unit.

How to Train Your Dragon Instructions Writing unit. I created these resources to use for live lessons but likewise they would work well in the classroom. Included is a sequence of 8 lessons including exploring new vocabulary, sequencing events, describing a setting, using fronted adverbials, the big write lessons with modeled paragraphs and editing lesson. Here is a break down of each lesson included: Features of Instructions including an introduction to how adverbs, if conjunctions and using conjunctions as sentence openers. Adventurous vocabulary - introducing 6 new adventurous words and modeled sentences. Planning our instructions. Choose a dragon and look at his key features. What special care instruction would they need? Writing our first 3 instructions - how can we turn our notes into instructions. Modeled examples using how adverbs, if conjunctions and conjunctions as sentence openers. Writing our next 3 instructions - how can we turn our notes into instructions. Modeled examples using how adverbs, if conjunctions and conjunctions as sentence openers. Writing our next 3 instructions - how can we turn our notes into instructions. Modeled examples using how adverbs, if conjunctions and conjunctions as sentence openers. Writing an Introduction to match your instructions - including modeled paragraph. Finalizing your instructions. Using our knowledge of the features of instructions, how can we bring all of our work together and present them effectively? This unit was planned and used by me and is a great unit of writing to get children hooked and enthusiastic about How to Train your Dragon. Works really well alongside my Guided Reading lesson unit. All resources supporting this writing unit are included. My class loved this unit and enjoyed being really creative with designing their dragons and what types of personalities they might have.

This 3 week Guided Reading unit is a must for any Year 4 class exploring How to Train your Dragon by Cressida Cowell. Using DERIC as a frame for questioning (Decode, Explain, Retrieve, Infer / Interpret / Choice), this resource matches the National Curriculum content domains set out for KS2. This resource provides questioning around each of the first 10 chapters of the book (you will need your own copy of the text) alongside fun, engaging activities to promote reading for pleasure. With a heavy focus on retrieval, explain (to ensure they have a good understanding of the text) and inference, this resource is perfect for a Year 4 class but could also be used for Year 5 or a Year 6 LA group to strengthen their retrieval or basic text interaction skills. Although this resource states that it includes 6 files, the main resource is a PowerPoint spanning 74 slides. The additional 5 resources are images of the slides to give buyers more information on what this resource offers. This is a high quality resource that I have used myself in my own classroom and is of a high planning quality. A true hit with my Year 4 class and a great text too! Enjoy!

How to Train Your Dragon Diary Writing unit. I created these resources to use in the classroom however, they would also make an excellent unit for live learning. Included is a sequence of 10 lessons including exploring new vocabulary, sequencing events, describing a setting, using fronted adverbials, the big write lessons with modeled paragraphs and editing lesson. Here is a break down of each lesson included: Talk Treasure Chest - exploring adventurous vocabulary to include in this piece of writing. How to describe a setting using Jane Considine’s FANTASTIC tool. Sequencing key events in the story from chapters 1 - 10 and creating a cartoon strip. Understanding the characters. Read alongside chapter 8 to complete the information about each characters dragon. Using fronted adverbials and examples of which ones (and types) we can use in our diary writing. Setting the scene - exploring how and when people write their diaries. The opening paragraph - the beginning of the story with modeled paragraph. Writing paragraph 3 including modeled paragraph and checklist for writing. Writing paragraph 4 including modeled paragraph and checklist. Editing your diaries using Bob the minion as the invisible child to edit and improve his work using key mistakes made by Year 4 writers. This unit was planned and used by me and is a great unit of writing to get children hooked and enthusiastic about How to Train your Dragon. Works really well alongside my Guided Reading lesson unit. All resources supporting this writing unit are included.

This is a complete unit of writing including everything you need for the 2 week cross-curricular piece of writing. Resources included: Teaching slides for 10 lessons 2 week of written plans writing up in best template Lessons include: *Lesson 1 - This lesson includes everything you need to teach your children about the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. This lesson has been used as the unit hook previously so the chn need no prior knowledge before teaching this lesson. This lesson includes 37 teaching slides using primary sources such as telegrams, photos of the tomb and treasures and newsreel. *Lesson 2 - Focuses on vocabulary development and gives the children 9 unfamiliar words to look up in the dictionary and find the definition of before using them in sentences that can be used in their newspaper reports. *Lesson 3- explores newspaper orientations and scaffolds how to write our own orientation. Lesson 4 - hot seat interviewing the main characters from the story and thinking about how they felt and what they would have said in an interview. Lesson 5 - teaches the chn how to use their character interviews using inverted commas. Lesson 6, 7 and 8 - all teach the main body and reorientation of the newspaper report using event checklists for each paragraph, uses spaces for whole class modeled examples and shares common misconceptions and gives a chance to edit these as a whole class. Lesson 9 & 10 - editing, writing headlines and starting to write up in best.

This resource has been used in the classroom but would also work well for live or recorded home lessons. This Guided Reading resource will provide a full week’s unit of work (possibly 2 - which is how long it lasted for us) with opportunities for wider curriculum / writing links too. Using DERIC as a frame for questioning (Decode, Explain, Retrieve, Infer / Interpret, Choice), this resource matches the National Curriculum content domains set out for KS2. With a heavy focus on inference, this resource is perfect for a Year 4 class but could also be used for a bright Year 3 class or LA Year 5 group to strengthen their inference skills. The PowerPoint resource is 114 slides and is good value for money. I never sell anything I haven’t tried and testing before and fully believe this resource is good value for money and of high quality. A true hit with my Year 4 class and a great text too! Note to buyer - you will need to have a copy of the book along side this resource to be able to use the questions provided.

Complete week long unit with planning and all supporting materials and resources. This is a favourite in my year group and always makes the perfect cross-curricular link for Mental Health week or when your class need some time to reflect on their emotions and identify what they feel like. This unit will be more valuable than ever at the moment in the aftermath of the pandemic. Included in this English unit is: Complete lesson teaching slides with modeled examples of tasks and poems. Planning All resources needed for all lessons (poem planning sheets, emotions identifying task sheet, charades emotions, poem writing templates, writing up in best frames). You really can’t go wrong with this unit. I hope your class enjoy it as much as mine have!