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!

This lesson models to children how to read the time on an analogue clock using the following Success Criteria: * I know how many minutes are in an hour * I know the minutes that each number on a clock face represents * I know when the time is at quarter past / half past / quarter to the hour * I can identify what hour the time is currently in Challenge: I can say times according to the approaching hour (e.g. ten mins to six = 5:50) It is contains a balanced mixture of partner talk questions, teacher modelling and independent activities, along with helpful links to resources to support the objective. It even has a challenge plenary at the end, asking pupils what is wrong with the given analogue time (answer: the small hand is too close to the next hour when the minute hand is only on quarter past). I cannot include worksheets for this lesson as I would be copyrighting other people's resources, but I have included links on one page to analogue clock resources. Or you could just Google it - plenty of free ones come up! Enjoy!

This resource nicely extends children learning about World War II by comparing London's post-war infrastructure to modern day. It compares various images from post-war to modern day (which children find particularly intriguing!) and uses engaging BBC short video clips to examine how housing infrastructure has changed since the war. As the main activity, children will identify key London landmarks by their pictures, stick and label them in their books, read an information text about how London has changed since WWII and see if they can find any information about their landmarks, noting facts next to the relevant pictures. The resource includes a full lesson Notebook presentation, the full information text, the images comparing post-war and modern day London, along with the activity resource sheet and instructions. 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.

Lesson presentation introducing acrostic poetry. Can be used as a theme opening lesson or as a stand-alone lesson. I made a cross-curricular link with our 'pirates' topic theme, but this can be easily adapted to suit a particular class theme or year group. Also included in this pack is a worksheet for your class to brainstorm their vocabulary ideas and practise writing their poem before writing it up neatly into their books. Enjoy!

This activity worksheet gets children to investigate the importance of photosynthesis in the plant lifecycle. It involves them planning the investigation (understanding what they want to find out and how they will achieve it), predicting what they think will happen, what equipment they will need, and how they will ensure the investigation is a fair test. The activity sheet is scaffolded to support different abilities and will support primary teaching of photosynthesis.

This activity gets children to practically investigate the permeability of rocks. To do this, they need to understand what ‘permeable’ and ‘impermeable’ means, predict whether rocks will be permeable or impermeable, support their predictions with explanations, observe rocks closely to investigate their permeability and write a conclusion based on the outcome of the investigation. The worksheet suggests that 3 rocks are used to test, and includes space to write/draw the rocks and to show their understanding and outcomes from the investigation. UPDATED 22/11/2016 to include whole lesson presentation flip/notebook! Woo!

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 helps children to consider the progression of time chronologically and the duration of different events. The lesson objective is to be able to create a daily routine using time facts Success Criteria: * I can order events chronologically * I can use vocabulary linked to the time of day * I can identify what time activities start and end * I represent times on an analogue clock Challenge: I can state how long activities last The lesson starts with a discussion about what key events would be included in a daily routine, with children thinking of their own personal examples. It then moves on to a teacher model of how time would be considered in a daily routine, from the start and end times to knowing the approximate duration of activities (i.e. they would know that brushing your teeth takes 5 minutes rather than 50 minutes). Children then independently create their own daily routine plan on the worksheet provided, which has been differentiated to challenge different learners. This lesson would suit KS1 and LKS2 classes and is easily adaptable. Enjoy!

This resource is part of a whole half term of engaging lessons which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about Humans Including Animals. This resource starts by recapping children's understanding of the different food groups, before focusing on digestion. It 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 using the engaging resources that I have suggested (the cover picture for this resource being the display made using one of their favourite lesson activities!) The objective and success criteria for the lesson are: LI: To understand the human digestive system Success Criteria I know what digestion is I know why humans need to digest what they consume I can place the digestive parts correctly in the body I can label the basic parts of the digestive system

This individual lesson teaches children how to structure lines in poetry to make them rhyme. I have linked this lesson to our Science work on the body, but this can easily be adapted to suit any cross-curricular theme or year group. Included is a whole lesson presentation, which allows you to model skills to the children and to challenge them to have a go themselves, and a worksheet for children to brainstorm their vocabulary ideas and structure before writing their poem up neatly into their books. Enjoy!

As it is hot topic in the news at the moment, I took one of the articles about the poppy / FIFA debate from the BBC and made it into a reading comprehension exercise to give children a purposeful activity in their reading time and something that could later be discussed in PHSE/circle time. In this pack is a PDF copy of the article (which is still available online) and linked questions suitable and easily adaptable for all KS2.

This lesson models to children how to write the time on an analogue clock using the following Success Criteria: * I know the big hand represents minutes * I know that the small hand represents the current hour * I know the minutes that each number on a clock face represents * I can move the hour hand according to the number of minutes past Challenge: I can present the 24 hour clock in analogue form It is contains a balanced mixture of partner talk questions, teacher modelling and independent activities, along with helpful links to resources to support the objective. I cannot include worksheets for this lesson as I would be copyrighting other people's resources, but I have included links on one page to analogue clock resources. Or you could just Google it - plenty of free ones come up! Enjoy!

This activity develops children atlas skills with a focus on the UK. Not only does it require children to study a map and locate places so they can mark them on a blank map, but it will also require them to understand the best page(s) to use to find particular information or country, especially when a place is too small to spot and they need to use the index. This activity will require children to locate 8 cities, 4 rivers, 4 national parks, 3 mountain ranges and (as a challenge), one ancient monument using specified colours. I have included example blank maps, but others are readily available under a Google search. Enjoy!

I used these lessons at the end of our Rocks topic in Science with my Year 3 class, but they were also used by Year 6 at their end of Evolution and Inheritance, so they are easily adaptable! The resource consists of a notebook of two lessons; one focusing on fossils, and the other on famous British fossil hunter Mary Anning. I used the latter lesson during a school inspection, and it went down well both with the visitor and the class! The lessons focus on develop children's understanding of fossils, how they link to rocks, and how fossil hunting is still important today. Luckily, at the time, Tiger stocked cheap fossil digging kits, so I bought some for the class to try in a third lesson and it was brilliant! I've seen them in other shops since and I'm sure they're available on the internet - photos are included of the children delicately chipping and brushing away.

When developing my children's comprehension skills, I don't like using photocopies from text books and meaningless expectancy sheets. I prefer to use purposeful, educational and REAL LIFE examples to engage and inform them, while still challenging them and looking for those reading skills. Therefore a lot of my comprehension challenges are based around interesting newspaper articles. In this example, taken from the BBC News website in April 2017, a village in the South West of England has declared itself as being 'hedgehog-friendly' in a bid to stop numbers falling. Included in this pack is a copy of the article and linking comprehension questions suitable for KS2. Enjoy!

This lesson helps children to understand the difference between solids, liquids and gases by teaching them that each state of matter has different molecules. It starts by explaining what molecules are, understanding how they move by predicting which diagram is for which state of matter (with reason) and then linking solids, liquids and gases to every day objects to demonstrate their understanding. Lesson includes links to useful videos, talk partner opportunities and an idea/model for a lesson activity. Suitable for KS1 and Lower KS2.

These two worksheets allow children to describe (draw, feel, source) and compare (texture, size, durability, colour) different rock samples practically in the lesson. UPDATE 22/11/16: Resource now includes linking interactive lesson notebook presentation! Woo!

This lesson gets children to investigate rocks practically - either in or outside of the classroom! It involves them comparing rocks by their size, shape, texture, durability, and many other factors, while also extending to thinking about why rocks are different. This is a cross-curricular lesson which links nicely with Maths, as it requires children to sort different rocks using a Venn Diagram. Included is a lesson presentation notebook and a worksheet and photographs from when I continued this lesson outside of the classroom on Hampstead Heath! Easily adaptable for a range of KS2 classes. Enjoy!

The objective for this lesson is to understand the measurement of time and comes in two parts. The first gauges children's prior understanding of the following success criteria: * I know how many seconds are in 1 minute * I know how many minutes are in 1 hour * I know how many hours are in 1 day * I know how many days are in a week and year Included is a worksheet for children to complete, with extra challenges on the notebook board for your higher abilities to be extended. In the second part of the lesson I wanted to challenge and extend children's knowledge of time, so I linked in a TED animation about how time is linked to both Maths and Science. It explains the concept of time measurement using flip book animation, which children can relate to. From this, I challenged children to make a short flip book of their own, using one of the two examples modelled in the video. My kids absolutely loved this lesson, and even made longer and more detailed flip books at home afterwards using different time criteria!