Inspire an interest in reading by telling your students about the fascinating life and work of Michael Morpurgo. This thirty slide Powerpoint covers his early life, his career, marriage and work. Find out the amazing story about how he discovered the identity of his biological father and how the author’s note at the beginning of War Horse was a little white lie until 2011. Finally there are four choices of activities for students to complete ranging from researching one of his books to writing an article about him. Students find real lives interesting, so this is a good way to hook them into reading.

Free worksheet on spelling words ending in Y. Check out Mrs Shaw’s Shop for more new interactive spelling powerpoints with fun cartoon graphics and all answers provided, designed to engage and interest your students, at the same time as embedding the learning.

Spelling words ending in y can be tricky. This powerpoint provides the rule and then practise with forty words ending in y. Presented as a quiz, students have to decide which is the correct spelling. This is then followed by a fourteen word exercise to add suffixes to words ending in y. All answers are provided and slides contain cartoon graphics to extend vocabulary and help second language learners. A worksheet is included to consolidate the learning in the lesson or at home. A simplified version of the quiz is thrown in free with differentiated worksheet also.

Nineteen lessons on this classic novel, which students love. Lessons explore the key theme of friendship, as well as lots of opportunities for literacy work. Assessment material included on writing a character analysis of Stanley.

English spelling is tricky enough with the historical divergence between pronunciation and spelling. Then there are those strange Latin and Greek plurals that we can never seem to get our heads around. Never fear. This powerpoint explains the rules of words such as criterion, data, formula and almnus followed by a fun twenty word quiz for students to apply the rules. Cartoon graphics are included to help any second language speakers. This activity would also benefit science students to master some key terms. A worksheet to consolidate the learning in class or at home is included.

Do you add -s or -es to the end of words ending in o in the plural? Students are introduced to the spelling rule, then given a worksheet to help them learn the spellings. The powerpoint gives a clue and a graphic and the students have to spell eighteen words ending in o. The graphics will help students for whom English is a second language. All answers provided.

Learn to spell irregular words ending in -f or -fe that can take -s or -es in a fun way with this powerpoint and worksheet. The rule is explained on the powerpoint and then students are given a look/cover/spell/check worksheet to learn the spellings ready for a test. The powerpoint contains eighteen spellings with graphics for clues, which will help and second language speakers in your class. A further worksheet can be used to consolidate the activity in class or for homework. All answers provided, so students can mark their own work.

Students learn to spell irregular plurals that end in -es with this sixty slide powerpoint. Students decide whether the twenty-five words presented on separate slides end in -s or -es. Cartoon graphics are used as extra clues and to help English as a second language speakers. A further consolidation worksheet is included to embed the learning, which students can fill in at the end of the activity or at home. A fun way to learn irregular plurals.

Students find the spelling rule i before e tricky because there are several exceptions. This sixty slide powerpoint introduces the i before e rule and then students are given time to learn the spellings using a look/cover/spell/check sheet. The powerpoint then gives fifteen sentences with key words missing, which students have to spell correctly. There are a further ten clues to words with ie/ei in them. Finally an additional sheet contains 40 words with letters missing for students to consolidate the learning, either at home or in class. By the end of the lesson, they will be masters of the ie spelling rule!

Although Old English was spoken many centuries ago, some words have survived into modern English. This powerpoint contains clues to ten words which originated in Old English. It is then followed by examples of place names which are derived from Old English. Students are given many opportunities to brainstorm more place names and investigate the language. This could be used as part of the English or History curriculum.

Simple literacy activities on spelling and sentence structure are contained in this twenty page booklet on the theme of animals. Short poems by Benjamin Zephaniah and Gyles Brandreth and information about electric eels keep students interested with scope for their own research and writing about an animal of their choice. Aimed at students who need to catch up at secondary school or primary school students.

Calling all Harry Potter fans, this fifty question quiz with answers will test your knowledge of JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter novel - “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”. A fun way to encourage reading.

This folder contains a twenty-slide powerpoint and a worksheets to introduce the key themes of the play as introduced in the prologue. There is a cloze exercise on a modern verision of the poem and a more difficult translation exercise, which could be completed for homework. After getting to grips with the language and themes of the Prologue, students then investigate Shakespeare’s use of compound adjectives inspired by “death-marked love” and “star-crossed lovers” and are encouraged to create their own brand-new compound adjectives, like Shakespeare.

In Act One Scene One of “Romeo and Juliet”, we meet Romeo for the first time and realise that he is in love with the idea of being in love with Rosaline due to his use of elaborate oxymorons to describe his feelings. This powerpoint explains the context of the play, the definition of oxymorons. The accompanying worksheet guides students to identify Romeo’s oxymorons and then gives them the beginning of oxymorons for them to create themselves. Could be used with the play or as a stand alone lesson on oxymorons.

Thirty multiple choice question with answers to revise the play.

This Powerpoint encourages students to create a leaflet to promote an Open Day at your school. It could be used as an activity or a formal assessment. A Word planning sheet is included in the folder.

This twenty slide Powerpoint guides students through how to have fun creating a 50 word mini-story with lots of examples, tips and golden rules. Students are given help to polish and re-draft their stories, culminating in them reading them out. It will take two to three lessons. It is good for getting them to think about beginnings, middles and ends, which they need for the creative writing element of the GCSE.

A six-page information booklet on The History of the English Language with a cloze timeline to help students gain and an overview of the evolution of the language. It covers The Celts, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, Normans, Middle English, William Caxton and standardisation. Word documents so fully editable.

Have fun learning about the influence of the Viking language of Old Norse on the English Language. The powerpoing lesson begins with students having to guess the Old Norse words from clues; then they use spelling patterns introduced by the Vikings to guess more words introduced to the language. Finally students are given lots of examples of the Vikings’ poetic form of kennings and have to come up with five of their own to describe modern objects. They then make a poster to celebrate their success.

This fifty -slide Powerpoint celebrates the influence of Indian languages on English both past and present. Starting off with a matching activity of new words that have come into English as recorded in Baljinder K Mahal’s dictionary “The Queen’s English: How to Speak Pukka”, the lesson then proceeds with a quiz on words that have come into English from India from one hundred years ago. (Answers provided). For the final activity, in groups students either write a story or script using as many of the words that they have learnt.