This is a set of maths targets for use with Year 1 children in the first half term of the academic year. Suitable for teachers, teaching assistants, parents, home schoolers and trainee teachers. Can be used at home or at school to monitor progress, for homework or as a group activity. The full set of Maths Targets for Y1 and for Years 1 - 6 is available from Teaching Rainbows on TES Resources.

This is a set of maths targets for use with Year 2 children in the first half term of the academic year. Suitable for teachers, teaching assistants, parents, home schoolers and trainee teachers. Can be used at home or at school to monitor progress, for homework or as a group activity. The full set of Maths Targets for Y2 and for Years 1 - 6 is available from Teaching Rainbows on TES Resources.

Wednesday Work was an initiative I introduced with my Year 5/6 Class following a seminar at the Global Leadership Summit led by Patrick Lencioni. He taught a session based on businesses who had increased productivity by allowing their employees 20% of their working week to follow their own lines of enquiry and plan their own time. These goals had to be in line with the companies aims but gave employees ownership of their time and their direction. This had a significant impact on both employee retention, and productivity. In school, we identified 2 hours a week with Years 5 and 6 and within the theme of that half term’s work, gave the children the opportunity to decide what they would like to learn, do or make. The rules were as follows: A full plan had to be submitted showing aims, outline plans, resources, predicted timescales and intended outcomes. This had to be discussed with a member of staff and resources had to have been either collected in school or brought in from home before work could begin. Each child was accountable for working to a high standard and for their progress in each lesson. Once completed, the results had to be shared with the rest of the class. The outcomes were amazing! Children who usually couldn’t wait for break time were asking to stay in to complete their work! The children displayed a variety of skills and talents and their general confidence grew as a result. Children who struggled with academic learning became experts in their own strength zones and were looked up to by the other children. The highlight of these sessions was a termly open afternoon where the children displayed their work and we invited parents into school for the children to present their work. These afternoons were great confidence builders and really showcased the children’s talents. Give it a try – you won’t regret it!

Take the time out of planning your spelling programme for Year 5. This resource will give you the first half term’s coverage with teaching points and differentiated word lists. Suitable for teachers, parents, home schoolers and trainee teachers. The remainder of the Year 5 Spelling Programme is available from Teaching R ainbows on TES Resources.

This resource aimed at 7 - 11 year olds, provides 8 starting points to investigate next door neighbour numbers or consecutive numbers on a number line. Each one can be used as a separate lesson idea or the different starting points could be given to different groups of children in the same lesson. Answers included!

This is a template for a postcard with a choice of five different activities for using it. The aim is to start the new year with a creative activity which also makes the children think hard! There is also an additional activity sheet to support activities 4 and 5. Have fun with it! Great for you if you are just starting out in teaching or want to start the year off in a ‘different’ way.

5 x 15 minute literacy and maths activities for Year 4. Are you… Struggling to get your children to practice their basic literacy and maths skills during the half term holiday? Looking for some short, age appropriate resources to send home with the children to complete each day? Searching for something with answers included? I’ve been a class teacher just like you, and spent hours designing suitable resources to encourage my pupils to keep working on their maths and literacy skills through the holidays. That’s why I created these resources to support you. Attached, you will find extracts from some of the activities included in the pack. Each pack contains 5, 15 minute activities for your pupils to do at home - one for each day of the half term holiday - including number and word activities, reading comprehensions and maths puzzles - all with answer sheets included.

5 x 15 minute literacy and maths activities for Year 3. Are you… Struggling to get your children to practice their basic literacy and maths skills during the half term holiday? Looking for some short, age appropriate resources to send home with the children to complete each day? Searching for something with answers included? I’ve been a class teacher just like you, and spent hours designing suitable resources to encourage my pupils to keep working on their maths and literacy skills through the holidays. That’s why I created these resources to support you. Attached, you will find extracts from some of the activities included in the pack. Each pack contains 5, 15 minute activities for your pupils to do at home - one for each day of the half term holiday - including number and word activities, reading comprehensions and maths puzzles - all with answer sheets included.

This is for you if you are a Year 6 teacher and want to challenge your Year 6 children to demonstrate their leadership skills in a practical way by creating, organising and running and afternoon of activities for the younger children in your school. We planned this one as a means of freeing up the Reception classroom for use by the new entrants and it worked so well that it became an annual event and a highlight of the year. Have fun with it!

This resource contains a series of activities using a simple number line starting point. These can be introduced by the teacher and used as investigations with the class or the diagram could be used to generate lines of enquiry by the pupils. It can be used with children from Year 2 upwards and extended to include negative numbers if desired.

5 x 15 minute literacy and maths activities for Year 3 to do at home. Are you… Struggling to get your children to practice their basic literacy and maths skills during the half term holiday? Looking for some short, age appropriate resources to send home with the children to complete each day? Searching for something with answers included? I’ve been a class teacher just like you, and spent hours designing suitable resources to encourage my pupils to keep working on their maths and literacy skills through the holidays. That’s why I created these resources to support you. Each pack contains 5, 15 minute activities for your pupils to do at home - one for each day of the half term holiday - including number and word activities, reading comprehension and maths puzzles - all with answer sheets included.

5 x 15 minute literacy and maths activities for Year 3. Are you… Struggling to get your children to practice their basic literacy and maths skills during the half term holiday? Looking for some short, age appropriate resources to send home with the children to complete each day? Searching for something with answers included? I’ve been a class teacher just like you, and spent hours designing suitable resources to encourage my pupils to keep working on their maths and literacy skills through the holidays. That’s why I created these resources to support you. Attached, you will find extracts from some of the activities included in the pack. Each pack contains 5, 15 minute activities for your pupils to do at home - one for each day of the half term holiday - including number and word activities, reading comprehensions and maths puzzles - all with answer sheets included.

This resource will take the pain out of planning your spelling programme for Year 3. It provides a spelling focus for each week of the year together with word lists and a selection of tricky words from the Year 3 spelling list. Great for you if you are new to Year 3, just starting out in teaching or are home schooling your children at home.

This practical resource takes the three main strands of mathematical thinking - application, communication and reasoning - and develops them in a step by step approach. It is useful for any teacher at any stage of their career who is looking to introduce, develop and promote a thinking and reasoning approach to mathematics in the classroom. It can be used with any activity and with any age of children.

This resource will take the pain out of planning and delivering the Year 4 spelling programme. It provides weekly spelling lists and tricky word lists with key teaching points to establish. This resource is for you if you are an NQT, new to Year 4 or are homeschooling your children.

In just ten minutes per day, this resource is proven to improve a child’s speed and accuracy with multiplication facts to support all areas of calculation in mathematics. In order to access the Year 5 and 6 maths curricula, children benefit greatly from the ability to rapidly recall their times tables facts. Without this skill, children spend valuable time having to ‘work out’ their times tables facts and this has a negative impact on accuracy, efficiency and most importantly confidence, in mathematics. This Resource contains… Five sheets of multiplication questions. Five sheets of division questions. Three recording charts to monitor progress. How this resource works The Question Sheets. Each times-table sheet contains seventy-five questions arranged in three columns. The aim is to complete as many of these questions as possible in ten minutes without missing any of the questions out! For younger children, or children who are less confident with their times tables, the sheets could be divided into three separate columns so that they are only faced with twenty-five questions at a time! How to record progress Which Recording Chart to use. At the end of the ten-minute session, choose one of the Recording Charts included in the pack. • If a child is not confident with their tables and is only working on one column, use Recording Chart 1. This will record a maximum of 18 questions so will build confidence in the early stages of proficiency. • If the children are moving onto the second column , choose the Recording Chart 2 • If the children are completing over 36 questions in 10 minutes, choose Recording Chart 3. Completing the Recording Chart. It is recommended that the children complete the Recording Chart of their scores so that they can see how they improve over time. The Recording Chart is divided into columns. Complete one column on the Recording Chart for each ten-minute session. Record the number of questions answered in one colour. Use the answer sheet to mark the questions. Criss cross over the column already completed to show the number of questions that were correctly answered. (This will help the child see how accurate they are as well as how speedy they are. If a child is getting all their questions right, their challenge is to do more in the time available. If a child is completing many more questions than they are answering correctly, the next challenge is to slow down and aim for greater accuracy.) Challenge and Extension. Use the Division Sheets in place of the multiplication questions. Reduce the time limit allowed to complete the questions. Focus on the time taken to complete the whole sheet. How quickly can you complete the seventy-five questions?

A set of 10 literacy and maths activities to help children keep their basic skills active during the school Christmas holidays. Designed to take only fifteen minutes a day, this pack of activities covers reading, vocabulary development, word puzzles, calculation, times-tables and word problems complete with answer sheets and a self assessment tracking grid. All the activities are written by an experienced primary school teacher.

A set of 10, maths and literacy activities to support and maintain children’s maths and literacy skills during the school holidays. These 10 , festive themed activities are designed to take 15 minutes per day and cover areas such as: reading comprehension and cloze procedure, basic calculation and timestables, vocabulary development and word puzzles, and worded maths problems and investigations. A full set of answers is provided and each activity is designed to be completed independently to reduce the amount of adult intervention needed. The author, Jan Mace, is an experienced primary school teacher and has over 30 years experience as a teacher, school leader, local authority advisor and initial teacher trainer.

Developing Mathematical Thinking is the key to effective teaching in mathematics. This resource takes a simple number line and shows you how to develop the key skills in mathematical thinking using 8 simple activities. It includes Starting Points, Key Questions, Teaching Points and Assessment Guidelines to help you introduce, develop and assess the children’s progress through the teaching activities. This resource also contains advice about how to structure your teaching to build the children’s confidence and how to gradually reduce the support as their confidence increases. Effective and practical advice to support you in the classroom and to raise standards in mathematical thinking.

This resource will take the pain out of planning your spelling programme for Year 5. Each week it tells you which sounds to focus on and key teaching points to establish as well as a number of tricky words to cover. Wherever possible the weekly words are divided into three levels to target the differing abilities in the class. Great if you are an NQT, new to Year 5 or home schooling your children.