Poetry & literacy resources by published children's poet.
I also lead poetry workshops for UK primary schools.
Website: katewilliamspoet.com
Book news - Squeak! Squawk! Roar! Animal poems - out 9th January '25. Publisher: Otter-Barry Books.
Poetry & literacy resources by published children's poet.
I also lead poetry workshops for UK primary schools.
Website: katewilliamspoet.com
Book news - Squeak! Squawk! Roar! Animal poems - out 9th January '25. Publisher: Otter-Barry Books.
Fun, motivating literacy activities for practice and assessment of tricky spellings (e.g. its/it’s, which/witch, and s/es plurals; also practice of lit. techniques - onomatopoeia & alliteration. Handy for pre-SATs or general testing, and year-round literacy development.
This rich assortment of castle-themed literacy resources includes poetry frames for all ages, rhyme and word banks, rhymes to clap and enact, an atmospheric picture to inspire, and fascinating illustrations, plus handy teacher tips. Similes, acrostics, descriptive writing and writing confidence are supported, while giving insights into castle life long ago.
This exciting jungle picture offers fun and learning combined, with wide open scope for colour choices, interesting shapes to shade in and a range of exotic flora and fauna to identify and focus on. This resource promotes development of fine motor skills, colour sense, shape and pattern awareness, creative expression, and an understanding of nature, wildlife and, in particular, jungle and rain forest. See my other wildlife colouring sheets for variation.
**SEE ALSO - ** This snake is - writing inside a snake picture - https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/-this-snake-is-picture-poem-frame-yr-1-11885174
These inspiring and attractive writing sheets of birds in flight (3 graded versions) will enthuse your independent and emergent writers. After a stimulating input - watching birds, flying like birds yourselves and building a word-bank of action and describing words for them, they’ll love choosing their favourites to write on the flowing, wavy lines. There’s plenty of colouring to do, too. The Guide sheet offers handy ideas to bring in. Supports bird migration, autumn and journeys themes.
Young children will enjoy colouring in this lively natural scene, and identifying insects and other crawly creatures as they work. They will develop colour awareness, fine motor skills and an understanding of the minibeasts and their natural environment, as they bring the picture alive with their own creative input.
Supports Literacy, PSHE, mental wellbeing and physical exercise, as well as poetry, drama and all-round creative expression. This is a fun writing challenge, involving similes and action words, with scope for enrichment. A monster (s/he) can be any sort you like, with three heads and two tails perhaps, and this one has moods - happy, cross, excited, ?.. How does a monster behave when cross? Do they charge around the monster school, stamping on books like an angry giant? When happy, does s/he glide like an angel, or perform back-flips like a gymnast? The warm-up actions sheet will spur extended ideas. Hand-sketched illustrations.
SEE MY SEA-MONSTER FOOD sheet too!
Crazy space alien to colour in. Drawn freehand, this whirly, twirly, crazy creature is waiting to leap to life with the first touch of colour. The resource supports Space studies at all primary levels, also serving for pencil control practice, colour sense development and expressive arts and design material.
Development tip: after colouring, suggest children design their own alien, then describe it in words.
See my many other space-themed creative resources too.
This space rocket is shooting through a busy part of space, with planets, stars, sun, moon and a shooting star around it. Its three windows show an astronaut waving, a curtained window and one with a dog looking out. It’s a picture full of fun, inspiration, and interesting shapes to colour.
This simple, punchy poem clarifies and celebrates the main colours - blue, red, green, yellow, orange, silver and gold, black and white, grey and brown. Pink can be added as a class contribution, following the poem’s pattern. It can be clapped, chanted, and presented with a display of colours, to help young children learn them.
Here’s a fun colour riddle for your class to watch and hear (also by me):
‘What Colour am I?’ https://youtu.be/JGKvOUDyXmk
Butterfly, Ladybird, Robin, Squirrel, Hedgehog, Frog + Rabbit colouring sheets for young children. Clear, attractive, black-and-white drawings, with natural settings and details, nurturing a love of nature and wild animals while also developing colour sense, pattern appreciation and fine motor control.
Do have a listen (free) to this gorgeous cat music, by a favourite composer of mine! The children will love it too!
Dragons are fun, exciting and versatile - open to any interpretation while offering thrilling and fascinating features. This bundle of activities and imagination-firing colour-sketches will inspire your children’s creativity, while supporting phonics, language and literacy development - not to mention colour clarifying and rhyme, rhythm and performance development.
Recommended for Reception + KS1, while the rhymes and pictures will appeal to older children too.
Dragons abound in this great array of fun and exciting literacy activities. There are rhymes to chant, enact and develop, a rhyme bank for concocting more, a dragon’s crazy menu to complete (with alliteration), a dragon word-building sheet, dragon similes to write, and six lively, colourful dragon sketches to fire ideas and enthusiasm. Children love this theme! Resources tried and tested - with great results.
Young children will enjoy thinking up words to describe dragons and sounding them out to complete the lines on these illustrated sheets, then colouring in the pictures. Non-writers can colour in the dragon and castle turrets picture and offer words verbally. Dragons can be any colour, have any character, and have exciting physical features to describe. Contents: 1 colouring picture, 1 writing/colouring sheet starting My dragon is…, 3 graded versions of a writing/colouring sheet starting Watch out for the… dragon, and Dragon’s Menu with alliteration (T… on Toast etc.).
3 creative writing resources to support ocean + pirate topics, featuring alliteration, similes and rhyming couplets. 4 sheets - Treasure Map (alliteration game), Stormy Sea poem frame (similes + description on wavy lines), Rhyme Bank (full page), Example Verses sheet. Learning through fun activities for junior writers of all abilities. Tips - warm up for each with discussion, pictures and perhaps acting out; start with whole-class version; some may need 1-1 support for verse-writing; invite everyone to read out.
These attractive star pictures are fun to write in, and there are plenty of straight lines to write on - shooting in all directions. The variations are graded in difficulty, with increasing opportunities for words and similes, the hardest having three descriptive lines to complete below, about stars, sky and space. Colouring possibilities are wide open.
Recommended approach: first, in a wide space, ‘be’ stars with your group, pointing, shooting, whirling, glowing, winking, blinking, dancing, spinning. Then prompt for verbs like these, and adjectives, such as spiky, sharp, peaceful, gentle, high up, twinkly, pretty, delicate, dainty, tiny - and different colours. The similes are for sparkly stars and dark space.
The 3-sheet resource has been used with rewarding results in my workshops. They are hand-drawn and home-produced, so don’t expect perfect symmetry!
This beautiful and fascinating picture of a lush, flowery meadow will inspire children to colour in the details with thought and imagination. It promotes understanding of the natural world, including mini-beasts and birds, and develops fine motor skills, colour sense and pattern and shape awareness, also offering a focus for discussion.
See also my video-poem - ‘Summer Grass’ - https://youtu.be/WWBSjiBTDOg
Seaside writing resource for young children. “Shells can be…” with short, thick writing lines between shell representations for describing words. Supporting guide sheet for teacher also included. Start by handing round some shells, encouraging children to study, feel and listen to them. Discuss their properties, prompting for words like curly, light, hard, smooth, rough, shiny, hollow, round, twisty, pretty, patterned and delicate. Then present sheet, demonstrating how they can have a go at writing their word ideas on the lines. Perhaps try some together on the board first. After the activity, invite all to choose a word to read out or say. The shells can then be coloured or decorated.
Robin colouring sheet for young children. An attractive, educational, black and white drawing of a young robin, just hatched, cracked egg nearby, in a springtime setting. Clear lines to shade between, with interesting shapes and colours to consider. See my other colouring sheets (mostly approx. pp. 6-8 in my catalogue), including hedgehog, squirrel, rabbit, butterfly, meadow and seaside.
This attractive ocean picture and simple phrase-starter will inspire young children to get writing and colouring. The Ideas Sheet offers suggestions for warm-up, word-prompting, similes and further development from this simple resource.
See also my Phonics in the Sea - 10 big, bright words to read on a seaside photo: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/phonics-in-the-sea-10-words-to-read-12112315