English consultant. Former Head of Faculty, and author of five texts for Pearson Education. Current examiner and team leader for two examination boards.
English consultant. Former Head of Faculty, and author of five texts for Pearson Education. Current examiner and team leader for two examination boards.
As the title suggests, this resource contains 50 activity sheets, each sheet containing four sections:
Punctuation and Sentences
Spelling Outburst
Grammar Slammer
Vocab Lab
The 50 activity sheets are progressive, developing students' understanding and skills, and covering such topics as:
Punctuation and Sentences - proper nouns, apostrophes, punctuation of speech, commas, sentence structure, main and subordinate clauses, embedded clauses, etc.
Spelling Outburst - consonant digraphs, vowel / consonant digraphs, split digraphs, consonant doubling, common errors such as their/ there/ they're, prefixes and suffixes, homophones etc.
Grammar Slammer - nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, modal verbs, past tense and present tense, past progressive, present progressive etc.
Vocab Lab - a new word for every lesson.
Great for settling students down at the beginning of the lesson with focused, meaningful SPaG work, building the contexts for SPaG over a period of time.
The resource also enables teachers to pick up any problems as the series progresses, and will ensure that there is a reference to clear accurate English at the beginning of every lesson.
Provides sufficient 'settler and starter' activities for around 15 weeks.
Answer sheets provided, so simply copy and you're ready to go!
All images are free to use commercially.
50 Settlers and Starters
A pack of 50 progressive activity sheets, developing students' understanding and skills, and covering such topics as:
Punctuation and Sentences - proper nouns, apostrophes, punctuation of speech, commas, sentence structure, main and subordinate clauses, embedded clauses, etc.
Spelling Outburst - consonant digraphs, vowel / consonant digraphs, split digraphs, consonant doubling, common errors such as their/ there/ they're, prefixes and suffixes, homophones etc.
Grammar Slammer - nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, modal verbs, past tense and present tense, past progressive, present progressive etc.
Vocab Lab - a new word for every lesson.
Great for settling students down at the beginning of the lesson with focused, meaningful SPaG work, building the contexts for SPaG over a period of time.
The resource also enables teachers to pick up any problems as the series progresses, and will ensure that there is a reference to clear accurate English at the beginning of every lesson.
Avoiding Common Errors
A series of twelve starter activities covering some of the most common errors that we, as teachers, see in our students' writing.
Each starter begins with an 'error' slide, where students are asked to spot the error that the slide illustrates.
There follows an explanation of the error and how to correct it, the penultimate slide in each starter unit being designed so that it can be laminated for permanent classroom display.
Each presentation is supported by activities in the accompanying workbook, for individual, pair or group work.
Sentence Power
A series of fifteen starter activities designed to give students opportunities in experimenting with a variety of sentence forms in a variety of contexts.
For instance, students may be asked to begin sentences with adverbs, participles, imperative verbs or abstract nouns; they may be asked to use rhetorical questions, repetition or rule of three within their sentences; they may be required to write a sentence in 15-20 words, or only five words, or end the sentence with an exclamation.
Crucially though, students are asked to experiment with their sentence types in the context of different pieces of writing, such as an extract from a thriller, from a romantic novel, or a horror story; other contexts offered are advertisements, letters of complaint, diaries, reviews, instructions, etc.
Spellpics 1 and 2
This comprises 20 spelling activities that are great fun, while at the same time providing a learning structure to enable students to develop their understanding of spelling strategies.
Each activity provides 5 PowerPoint game slides - sixteen pictures linked to sixteen words focusing on different spelling rules, such as the 'i before e' rule, split digraph rule, 'tion' suffix rule, etc.
Each game is supported by an extension activity to underline and embed the learning strategy, and the final slide of each game displays the key learning points of the game, that can be laminated for classroom display.
The 'Big Non-Fiction Writing Bundle' contains four full schemes of work for 20-25 hours of classroom activities! The four units of work contain everything you need: professionally produced PowerPoint presentations, student worksheets, materials for effective differentiation, peer assessment materials, and of course, detailed teachers' notes. Not only this, but each unit also contains a supportive homework presentation for you to place on your school's VLE, or to use as further extension activities in class.
'Letter Writing' (Audience and Purpose) is a fun unit that takes in 'Harry Potter' and 'The Three Little Pigs', while developing students' skills in producing clear, coherent, formal and informal letters.
'The Real Dickensians' and 'The Iceman' are both investigative units of work that contain a wealth of supportive frameworks to enable you to differentiate your lessons easily - writing frames, placemats, sentence starters, etc., and to enable your students to write cohesive, informative texts.
In 'The School Play', students work on planning and delivering a magazine report of a school production, while the teacher (as the magazine's editor) gradually drops in various suggestions that cause writing teams to reconsider their plans and redraft their reports.
Separately, the units of work would cost £20, so at £12, the bundle is great value for money as well. I hope it proves to be a really useful addition to your classroom resources.
Total: 272 pages / slides
The first part of the unit analyses how Roald Dahl develops tension through effective sentence structure in 'The Man from the South', while the second half of the unit explores the effect of Tim Bowler's choice of words and phrases in 'Storm Catchers'.
Much oral work - discussion, dramatic readings, etc. ensure that students are active throughout the unit, which culminates in an assessed piece of work and dedicated peer assessment opportunity (linked to the VLE homework unit).
Contents: (4-6 lesson scheme of work, full resources and lesson plans)
Classroom presentations
8 page workbook
VLE Homework presentation
Homework resources
Writing frames
Peer assessment resource
Full lesson plans
Note: All images are free for use commercially.
A unit of work that contains an abundance of pictures, anecdotes and reports based on the 'Scriven Report', which investigated the working conditions in the factories of 'The Potteries' in the mid 1800s.
Students use grids, writing frames and summarising placemats to investigate and report on the working lives of young children, and to develop their ability to organise non-fiction writing.
The VLE homework unit develops and embeds students' understanding of 'main idea' and 'supporting details' by using further extracts from the report.
Contents: (4-6 lesson scheme of work, full resources and lesson plans)
Classroom presentations
6 page workbook
VLE homework presentation
Grid for note-taking
Writing frame
Summarising placemat
Peer assessment resource
Full lesson plans
Note: All images are free for use commercially.