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.

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!

This activity allows children to demonstrate their understanding of what gravity is, how it is measured, and to practically investigate and compare the weight of different objects. The objective is to understand that gravity gives us weight, with the following steps to success: - I know gravity is a force - I know that gravity affects the weight of objects - I know that weight is measured in Newtons - I can measure and record the weight of different objects Challenge: I can explain the difference between weight and mass The worksheet involves children being able to explain the difference between weight and mass, to draw a newton meter, and to use one to measure the weight of different classroom objects, recording their results in table form. This worksheet can easily be adapted for different classes and abilities.

This activity would link well with primary teaching of forces, specifically gravity. It is in two parts: the first requires pupils to demonstrate their basic understanding by filling in missing words into a information paragraph about gravity (the missing words being at the bottom to select from). The second part requires children to demonstrate their understanding of gravity from own experiences, drawing pictures of where they have seen the force of gravity in action. Suitable for a Upper KS1 or Lower KS2 classes. Enjoy - and look out for more of my Science resources in my TES shop!

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!

This resource helps children to understand the concept of inheritance in biology using the following success criteria: I know that living things produce offspring of the same kind I know that living things pass down particular characteristics to their offspring I know that offspring will inherit characteristics from both parents I know that offspring are not identical to their parents In the activity they will think about their own characteristics and then compare these with their family's characteristics (parents, siblings). They will then use The Rugrats as an example to show how offspring can be similar to one or both of their parents, but not identical. Suitable for upper KS2.

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

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 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 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!

I made this resource based on the 2016 John Lewis Christmas advert. It is about a dog called Buster who loves watching his young owner dream of being a professional gymnast, but then as her surprise gift is built on Christmas Eve, Buster appears becomes upset when the garden wildlife get to have a go, unbeknown to the family. The next morning, as the little girl flies out of bed and out into the garden to try her present, the family are lost for words when Buster pushes her aside to leap on to the trampoline first. I wanted to use this advert, not only because John Lewis adverts have become incredibly popular in the run up to Christmas, and therefore children find them very entertaining and engaging, but also to develop children’s description, focusing especially on verbs. Included are two differentiated story plans, a vocabulary sheet with larger screen shots from the film and a Notebook flip chart 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 John Lewis Christmas adverts in my TES shop! **UPDATED 05/11/2018 TO INCLUDE POWERPOINT VERSION OF THE LESSON PRESENTATION**

This lesson activity developed two learning objectives: 1) To understand that Canada is made up of different provinces and 2) To be able to use Google Maps to locate places. My class studied the human and physical geographical features of Canada as part of their cross-curricular topic work (mainly focusing on rivers and mountains) therefore I wanted them to get to know the geography of Canada itself more, especially because it is so diverse. Therefore I made this activity which required children to: • Understand what a ‘province’ is • Understand why countries like Canada are split into different provinces • Use Google Maps to find global locations • Use the physical shape of a country to estimate the location of key places They then used the internet to research information about provinces, and then to locate key provinces, cities, and physical geographical features (e.g. Hudson Bay), marking them as accurately as possible on to their own blank map. I have included one blank map example, but others are readily available on Google images.

This activity gets children to compare the UK and Egypt's most important rivers; the Thames and the Nile. Using ICT, they will compare their size and overall importance by researching their length, depth, origin, mouth and major cities that they pass through and how each river has been used historically by their country. This would be a good cross-curricular activity to use if you are studying the Ancient Egyptians or Water/Rivers in your topic work and want to cover lots of skill sets.

In this Art lesson, children compare different portrait artists by studying 6 examples (each with the artist given) and then using the internet to research the date that the portrait was completed and who it is a portrait of. As an extension, they can also describe the use of colour in each portrait to compare the different examples. Artists to be studied include; Yousuf Karsh, John Singer Sargant, David Hockney, Picasso, Da Vinci and Rembrandt.

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!

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.

This activity would be a good cross-curricular focus for developing Maths and Science skills as it covers a range of success criteria meeting both curriculum skills: * I know what thermometers are used for * I know the unit of measurement for temperature is Celsius * I understand what is meant by ‘room temperature’ * I understand what is meant by ‘boiling temperature’ * I can explain why temperatures might vary within a room * I can read the scales of thermometers to identify temperature It involves placing 4 containers of (boiling water in different parts of a classroom, for children to predict what will happen to each of them, considering possible factors in the room. This helps children to understand room temperature and how it can vary.

This worksheet allows children to thoroughly plan and design their own product that uses magnets, following this success criteria: I can list some ways in which magnets are used at home and school I can suggest other ways in which magnets could be used I can present ideas using labelled diagrams/notes This lesson would ideally be used after learning about forces and magnets, allowing children to creatively demonstrate and extended their understanding, cross-curricular with DT.