I made and taught these Art lessons alongside our class Victorians topic, helping children to understand why silhouette artwork became popular in the Victorian period, how silhouettes are made and identifying everyday objects by their silhouettes. The first lesson is an introduction, as described above. The task gets children to match images of everyday objects with its silhouette. The second lesson gets children to work in small groups to sketch their portrait silhouette outlines using torches and pencils. The third lesson brings a modern twist to the portrait silhouette, by getting children to fill their portrait not with solid black, but with drawings and colour linked to their own personality (which could be linked to Mindfulness in PHSE). UPDATE 27/03/2019 Presentation now available in Powerpoint format.

This resource is a class assembly that I did with my Year 3 and 4 classes about our cross-curricular topic for the term: Light. To make the script I split the class into five groups, and gave each group a question to research with helpful bullet points. They went away and did this over a lesson, making the notes from which I made a class assembly script! The script can easily be adapted to change children's names or to add or take away parts. The script also includes visual activities or objects that groups can be showing to support their part of the assembly. Group topics include: What is light? Sources of light Darkness Shadows Reflections It is designed to be an informative assembly, but fun and easily for an audience to follow. Enjoy!

Saint Andrew's Day is celebrated in Scotland and other countries on November 30th. This resource consists of an information text about the day, it's meaning and how it is celebrated both in Scotland and other countries, along with linked comprehension questions to challenge children's understanding of the text. Includes pictures in the information text to make it more interesting and engaging. Suitable for KS2 and easily adaptable. UPDATED 29/11/2017

Planet Unknown is a brilliant futuristic animation about a two Space Rovers, sent to find potential inhabitable planets using 'nSeed' pods to detect the possibility of growing plants. In the story, the two Rovers are undertaking their mission, but suddenly find themselves battling through an asteroid shower. This resource is two lessons; the first gets children to brainstorm descriptive language for the two characters and the setting, while the second is the writing recount of events from the film. The two objectives are as follows: 1) To describe a film setting and its characters 2) To be able to recount a film as a written story These are each supported by specific success criteria to aid children's writing. This pack includes a Smartboard presentation with detailed slides for both lessons, a planning worksheet for lesson one, and screenshots JPEGs of the characters and the setting It can easily be adapted for different KS2 year groups and a particular skill focus, e.g. tense, sentence starters, grammar or vocab. I have kept it as a general recount focus involving all skills.

This is a fun lesson which allows children to learn and appreciate other social aspects of life during World War II. It starts by questioning children’s current understanding and enjoyment of entertainment via the radio, and informs them of its importance in the 1930s. It includes example radio clips from the war, asking children to discuss their features, and then goes on to compare those with clips from present day news broadcasting (both radio and television). The lesson objective and success criteria are as follows: Objective: To be able to write and broadcast a World War Two radio news bulletin Success Criteria: I can select key information about an event I can bias my report in favour of the Allied war effort I can use emotive language to engage the listener I can speak clearly I can use intonation and expression in my voice In my lesson I gave children facts about a particular bombing raid in London and asked them to report it as if they were a 1930s broadcaster. It was brilliant to see them dramatising their pronunciation and tone, and how they took different perspectives about the same event. I’ve left it open in the resource presentation as to what resource you would want to use for the children to complete this task. There are lots more WWII resources in my shop too if you want to link further lessons. Enjoy!

Having taught in an East London primary school, I wanted to end the class WWII topic by linking it to their own community. East London was a huge target during the Blitz, therefore was devastated during the war, which children in the area might not realise given the infrastructure around them. However, the lesson mainly compares WWII problems with modern day life in East London - positive and negative. It gets children to examine their own community, identify what is good, and what could be improved, and what they imagine it will be like in the future. The lesson activity is continuous through the lesson; making notes about what they think Hackney is like, and then develops to the children using their notes to write a poem (using my teacher example). Although this resource is focused on East London, it could be adapted to focus on area of London or the UK that was particularly affected by the Blitz. Resources include a Notebook lesson presentation, a worksheet for making notes, a presentation page for children to write their best copy of their poem and lots of picture resources.

I made this resource based on the 2017 Marks and Spencer Christmas advert. It features Paddington Bear, who confuses a burglar with Santa Claus. Enthusiastic as ever, Paddington insists on helping the man with his Christmas deliveries, to the dismay of the burglar, who sees his stolen presents being taken off him. Paddington takes his new friend to observe a little girl, Alice, opening her presents, unwittingly showing the burglar the true meaning of Christmas and making him a better person. It’s got great graphics to draw in the viewer and a story arc that many children will love, having already enjoyed Paddington stories previously. I wanted to use this advert, not only because Christmas adverts continue to grow in quality and popularity, with children finding them very entertaining and engaging, but also to develop children's writing, focusing in this instant on dialogue and speech verbs. Included is a story plan for children to note their ideas and a Smart Notebook or Powerpoint presentation for teaching the lesson. This can easily be adapted to develop a different Literacy skill or to suit a particular year group. Enjoy! And also see other Literacy recount lessons inspired by Christmas adverts in my TES shop! UPDATED 05/11/2018 TO INCLUDE A POWERPOINT VERSION OF THE LESSON PRESENTATION

This resource is a worksheet with a clear outline of a world map, on which children are challenged to draw key world rivers on. This can be used in a Water topic or to simply develop geographical knowledge / map reading skills. Using atlases and/or Google Maps, the children will locate each river, match it to the area on their map and try to accurately draw it on and label it. The rivers children are challenged to locate are: 1. Mississippi 4. Thames 7. Nile 2. Danube 5. Huang Ho 8. Niger 3. Ganges 6. Amazon

Having taught in an East London primary school, it was great to see Stratford change right in front of our eyes when the Olympic site and surrounding parkland was changed. Therefore, I wanted to use this experience in the teaching of human geography - comparing how East London changed before to after the 2012 Olympic Games through different photographs. I hope this resource can be enjoyed by classes all over the country - not just in London!

These two worksheets can expand to form a Science topic over four to five lessons. Using their prior knowledge of materials and wind power, children independently design their own boat powered by wind either on paper or in their Science books. Existing examples could be shown. Then, at the start of the next lesson, children would use the first worksheet in this resource to evaluate each others designs using the following criteria: • Shape – How will this affect how it moves and balances on the water? • Size – How will this affect how the boat floats and balances? • Materials – Are they waterproof? How will you join them securely? • Sail – How will it steadily stay up and move the boat forwards? Following this, either in the same or next lesson, groups would then choose the best design or combination of design ideas from those on their table, to form a final group design of a boat with a sail. On the second sheet in this resource, they would then work together to plan their final design, using the following criteria: * I can consider the effect of water resistance in my boat design * I can make a sail that will catch wind * I can consider suitable materials to make my boat * I can annotate my design to explain material and shape choices Each group would draw their final boat design and list the materials needed to make it, before going on to make their boat in the following lesson, and then test them the lesson after that in a suitable outdoor location! (...we used a paddling pool!)

This resource is part of a whole half term of engaging lessons which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about the Humans including Animals. This lesson recaps children's knowledge of the human skeleton and then moves on to focus on animal skeletons, comparing different types, identifying well known animals by their skeleton and comparing human and animal skeletons. The resource includes questions to stimulate children's ideas and understanding, links to various video clips and interactive websites to engage and support, and both group and independent tasks to allow children to demonstrate and challenge their understanding. The lesson objective and success criteria include: LI: To compare the skeletons of different animals Success Criteria I can use first hand observations to find out about skeletons I can use secondary sources to find out about skeletons I can use observations to make predictions I can identify similarities and differences between human/animal skeletons

This resource is part of a whole half term of engaging lessons which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about Animals including Humans. This lesson initially recaps children's understanding of human and animal skeletons, before focusing on developing their knowledge of food groups. It includes questions to stimulate children's ideas and understanding, various interactive links to engage and support, and suggested tasks to allow children to demonstrate and challenge their understanding. The Lesson Objective and Success Criteria are: LI: To know the different food groups Success Criteria I can explain what animals and humans need to stay healthy I can name common food groups I can name example foods in each group

This is a five-lesson half-term resource on the cross-curricular topic, Earth Matters. Containing a Notebook flip and a worksheet, the KS2-suitable resource develops children's understanding of biomes and eco-systems in a range of engaging lessons, including research project, making a poster, making a 'dome biome' and making group powerpoint presentations which could then be used in a class assembly. The Learning Intentions/Objectives over the five lessons are: 1) To understand the features of biomes 2) To understand the interdependency of organisms in a biome 3) + 4) To understand that eco-systems are delicate / To know about global environmental problems and solutions 5) To know about global environmental problems and solutions / To prepare a presentation about a topic

I’ve used this lesson every Autumn to engage children into the Literacy skills needed to write a good instruction text, by linking it to how to use sparklers safely on bonfire night. This pack includes a Notebook and Powerpoint presentation for one lesson, and differentiated worksheets for pupils to plan their instructions before independently writing them up into their books. Suitable for KS2 - and do get a health and safety check before demonstrating with a real life sparkler. I did, and it amazed the kids and really energised their writing! UPDATE 02/11/2018 - RESOURCE NOW INCLUDES PRESENTATION IN POWERPOINT FORMAT!

Are your class studying the Ancient Greeks? Here's a lesson activity, focusing on Ancient Greek architecture, which gets children to research various facts about different buildings (e.g. stadiums, housing). This would be a great cross-curricular activity, as children could use ICT to research the answers. Worksheet could be completed in pairs, or for a shorter lesson, different groups could each focus on a particular architecture type.

This lesson uses brainstorming, questioning, exploration and matching to challenge the objective: To understand that plants make food in their leaves The Success Criteria is: I know the seven life processes I can explain why plants have leaves I know what the leaves of a plant need to make food I can label a diagram to explain this process Included is extensive flip pages helping children to understand the photosynthesis process and lesson activities to display their understanding. This lesson links with others in my resource shop, as a whole topic bundle about Plants.

This resource is the perfect introduction to a half termly topic which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about the human body, skeletons of both humans and animals, food groups and digestion. This particular lessons gets children to brainstorm what they already know about animals and humans, and what they would like to find out, helpfully allowing you to adapt your planning to match their subject knowledge.. Objectives and success criteria include: 1) LI: To be able to produce facts that state my current understanding 1) LI: To be able to ask questions which would develop my understanding Success Criteria I can state what I already know about a given topic I can ask questions linked to a given topic to develop my understanding I can use a range of question starters (what, who, how, when, do...)

As an introduction to your Plants topic, get children to brainstorm what they already know about plants. This will help you to direct your future planning more precisely by not repeating old knowledge or allowing you to plug clear gaps in understanding. Also, this lesson will allow children to brainstorm what they would LIKE to know, which gains you an insight into their interests about plants, helping you to produce engaging and focused lessons to inspire them!