I'm a tired teacher just like you; fighting to balance the importance of my own life with the fun and high level of education I want to give my students.
I hope these resources save you time so you can focus on the important things in life.
I'm a tired teacher just like you; fighting to balance the importance of my own life with the fun and high level of education I want to give my students.
I hope these resources save you time so you can focus on the important things in life.
This is a fun Vikings assembly from year 2 to 6. It has 2 songs with youtube links and one link to a Viking thunder clap which is very simple and my kids loved learning. It covers Viking weapons, clothing and Gods. I also put some costume suggestions at the back of the script which would definitely cover a couple of art and dt lessons too. There are so many opportunities for fun acting and miming in this script too depending on the ability of your class.
Hope you enjoy it!
An assembly explaining phonics in a fun way. The aim is to have one class educate other classes or even parents on the basics of phonics. It briefly explains: phonemes, digraphs, trigraphs, blending and has some practical rhymes, songs and games to help demonstrate these. It was written with year 2/3 in mind but can easily be adapted to work for any class above year 1. I would also suggest this a whole school assembly with staff acting it out for parents/children.
I still meet parents who’s children have made it to year 6 and have not understood the basics of phonics or why it’s used within school. I highly recommend taking time to educate parents in phonics so they feel like they can help with homework etc.
Hope this saves you time :)
Differentiated writing task on what role you want to have when you grow up. I've used this as a homework, literacy and IPC task. A great into for a new class or for an intro into a topic about different jobs.
Simple y2 targets, I send these home with parents at the start of the year and also circle two from each column during parent's evenings for parents to work on at home.
I stick a copy of each at the from of my children's books at the start of the year so they know my expectations for them by the end. In order to track their targets we highlight each box as s the achieve it, you can also stick a star on it and date it each time you are aware the target has been achieved.
This has made my life so much easier!
An assembly all the world’s best snack. This class assembly looks at the cocoa bean’s journey to chocolate. It introduces the idea of fair trade benefiting farmers and communities.
It includes some acting and one song with a youtube link to lyrics and dance moves.
Appropriate for a capable y2 class and up.
Enjoy :)
Fun board game for learning new vocabulary and recognising words which have a silent ‘h’. Lesson plan included to give you ideas and explain how to play.
I would recomend printing the game on a3 and laminating, this got me my first ‘outstanding’ in lesson and kids really love learning the new words!
Enjoy!
A series of differentiated sentence building activities focused on word class. These include articles, adjectives, verbs, nouns, subjects, adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions. The aim of the activity is to encourage children to see patterns in word classes and how they are organised within a sentence.
This can be completed as self directed learning, in pairs, as an* assessment* or a homework. For my lower ability students I often print example sentences jumbled up and ask the children to sort the words into the correct classes using the table. For my* higher ability* I have let them take a sentence from a book, create table and then ask them to continue the pattern creating their own sentences. It is a great way to let the children play with words. They have even came in handy when creating plans for stories.
Enjoy!
Fun introduction to 6 of the Greek Gods (Athena, Poseidon, Aphrodyte, Hades, Hestia, Zeus) and the myth of Medusa and Athena. This was incredibly fun to perform and involves embarrassing some teachers too…which kids and parents love to see.
Lines for 30 pupils and costume ideas.
Approriate for ks2 +
Enjoy :)
14 images and song titles. Cut and laminate each them put them into a box or bag, shake it up and allow the children to choose one to sing at the end of the day.
I've done this activity with every year group upto y2 and they loved the independence of choosing the song.
Also great for EAL kids to develop language skills with the rest of the class.
A collection of games from phase 2 onwards, one based on tricky words, one on the silent letter ‘h’ and a collection of 10+ ideas for other phonics starters/lessons…my kids loved them all!
These resources got me through my PGCE/NQT years.
This assembly is based on the unit of work I completed with my class, therefore I’ve included a plan of what I completed throughout my lessons.
This was a great cross curricular topic and as you’ll see, I’ve included links to art and DT, literacy and ICT.
The assembly included an option between two songs and the words to a poem we performed.
There are also a number of templates to create jumping jacks, shadow puppets and zeotropes. The document marked zerotrope template was a great freebie from a childhood museum which has other ‘toy’ related worksheets and activities which I sent as homework.
I completed this summer term in a year 2 class, but to be hones at it is all about the work the children complete can really work from year 1 - 6.
We had such fun with this topic and assembly, I hope you do too!
3 differentiated worksheets focused solely on adding ‘es’ to create plurals. This is could be completed as a self directed task or a homework. The main aim is to help children understand the spelling patterns which require ‘es’ rather than another plural spelling.
Enjoy
This is a simple page where the pupil is asked to sort and record a range of words which can later be used in their own writing. I love this activity as it has a range of uses: can be sent as a homework to teach the child how to use it independently with their own writing or reading, it can encourage children to take ownership over their work or to read a teachers comments more purposefully. I often hightlight an opener in a pupil’s work and they feel proud enough to record it in their word bank for later use. Most importantly, generally I use this as an assessment task throughout the term helping me to see if a child has misunderstood a term or has a repetitive spelling problem with a pattern.
Enjoy!
Lesson plan and worksheets to help you teach rhyming couplets. The lesson is introductory and lasts 60 minutes.
There are 3 differentiated activities and an example poem for the class to read and discuss together. I used this for an observation and received an outstanding. Unfortunately I used an overhead projector and wrote onto a blank screen with a smartboard pen so no slides are included, but I have highlighted where you could add you own if you wanted to.
Enjoy!
A social learning story made to read aloud to young kids. Either print in a3 or display as the powerpoint attached. The story is about Bas the Bat who has been hibernating for a long time. When he finally wakens up the world around him is different and scary.
The story is made to help children adjust to beginning nursery, returning to school after a long time or those struggling with the somewhat ‘scary’ Covid life
Includes step-by-step instructions both written and drawn as to how to create a cartoon lion. There is both a word and Powerpoint version.
I’ve used activities like this regularly to improve my classes listening, confidence in art skills and get used to positional language.
I have used this in RE when teaching Daniel and the Lion’s Den as well as science when studying animals. If you wish to use this as a literacy activity I have an alternative resources which is the same but altered to find word classes or focus of imperative verbs.
I would use this activity throughout the keystages giving the picture step-by-step for younger ages and simply giving audible steps for older classes.
Hope it saves you time :)
Includes step-by-step instructions both written and drawn as to how to create a cartoon lion. There is both a word and Powerpoint version of instruction, and a separate word document set up as worksheets including answer pages.
There are 4 main ways to teach word classes with this resource:
An oral task with kids to help them understand the use of bossy verbs with them unaware of what the are meant to be drawing.
A set of instructions in which they must find bossy verbs.
A set of instructions in which they must find bossy verbs and adjectives.
A set of instructions in which they must find bossy verbs, adjectives and nouns.
I’ve used activities like this regularly to improve my classes listening, confidence in art skills and get used to positional language. I have used it for cross-curriculuum learning in RE when teaching Daniel and the Lion’s Den as well as science when studying animals.
Hope it saves you time :)