These games are intended to boost vocabulary in KS2 but might be useful in other contexts. They are easy to play games with room for plenty of talk and further development. Some have more than one answer, and are intentionally open-ended.

My Year 4 class find it difficult to convert between units of measurement. This worksheet is intended to present them with a different challenge. I plan to use it as a starter but it could be used as a main activity. There are three sheets: cm and mm; cm and m; and a lower ability combination of both. It's all quite simple but it could save you time.

This powerpoint might be a useful starter to encourage KS2 writers to improve the quality of their writing. I’ve placed it free; please review it to help me improve my resources.

Eight story ideas, all set in the nineteenth century but could easily be converted, and a note explaining how you could use them lesson to develop the children's prediction and story telling skills. They were written as part of the Year 4 'Stories with historical settings' unit, linked with local history learning. The immediate outcome is paired or group talk and then presentation, but then you can refer back to the ideas in writing lessons.

Work as a team. Listen to others. Explain your ideas. Improve your vocabulary. One of these words is the odd one out. Which one? Why that one? Is there more than one answer? Intended for KS2. Four similar but different games.

I prepared these outline plans and resources for the morning of a KS2 Battle of the Somme history day. The afternoon will be spent in extended writing and creative activities. There are different resources for lower KS2 and upper KS2. Each session is meant to be about 30 minutes long but each could be extended to a full lesson. The planning and resources could also be used for First World War/WW1/Great War lessons generally. Some of the resources had photographs in but I have removed these to respect copyright - you can find replacements easily on the internet. Please come back with your review - after 245 downloads I had no feedback at all!

Work as a team. Listen to others. Explain your ideas. Improve your vocabulary. Use a dictionary. Pair these words and their meanings. If you are not sure of the meaning of a word, look it up. Intended for KS2. Four similar but different games.

In this activity, which is differentiated three ways, children sort words into different categories. The activity was created for Year 4, but would work well in Year 5 or Year 6.

Intended to boost vocabulary in KS2. Work in a pair. Listen to others. Explain your ideas. Improve your vocabulary. These dominoes use synonyms and near synonyms. You can use stars anywhere!

Three differentiated spelling activities for Year 4 to learn ‘shun’ words, where the root word ends -se or -de and the suffix -sion is added. The children make links between the root words (verbs) and the associated nouns. Answers are also provided. This resource could be used for revision in subsequent years.

Work as a team. Listen to others. Explain your ideas. Improve your vocabulary. These word cards can be sorted into 4 groups of 4 cards. Each group is linked by a theme, a meaning or something similar about the words. Look out for tricks! What are the groups? How are they linked? Intended for KS2. Four similar but different games.

Work as a team. Listen to others. Explain your ideas. Improve your vocabulary. Use a dictionary. These word cards can be put into order, from the slowest to the fastest, from the least to the most upset and so on. If you are not sure of the meaning of a word, look it up. There may be more than one way to order these words. Intended for KS2. Four similar but different games.

My Year 4 class enjoyed Bill’s New Frock, but needed a shorter model to help them to write their own stories. My character turns into a dog and trots round school, experiencing school life from anew angle and causing various reactions. This isn’t literature, but it may save you time and encourage your class to write well.

This is a small collection of resources to help the teaching of description for a story with a school setting. There are two short models for descriptions of characters, two short models for descriptions of settings and some sentence stems to support the development and drafting of description sentences. I have used them in Year 4 but they might be useful in other year groups within KS2.

These are two activities that you could use in KS2 while learning about play scripts or the theatre. I wanted to boost vocabulary and remind my Y4s of what they had gained from their show. The oracy cards were cut up by the children, working in pairs, and then they sorted them into a ‘diamond 9’ by importance. The theatre vocabulary was filled in by the children on the sheets, and the LA had the prompt sheet also included.

I made this resource to teach my Year 4 class three different ways to start a sentence: a pair of adjectives; a time adverbial; or a time preposition. I’ve used bright colours, but I have gone for simplicity and getting the children to do the work. I intend it to support the main activity in a grammar lesson, but it could be used for revision or as a starter.

Homophones suitable for lower KS2 are provided on printable cards. These can be distributed to children who can then find the person with the matching word and write a sentence to show each meaning. Or you could find another use for the cards - I’m going to use these again!

This is a short dialogue for children to practise speech punctuation, together with a short checklist of those punctuation rules. I have used this in Year 4 but it could be used in other year groups in KS2.

This is a great book to support a WWII topic or just on its own. It's a biography of the wartime childhood of a well known children's writer and illustrator. I wrote these comprehension questions for HA year 5 children. The questions are intended to cover a range of reading skills that children need to develop in UKS2. The 'explore' questions are intended for discussion; the 'comprehension' questions for independent work. I've included my answers - you may not agree! Chapter 1 is available to read or download on lovereading4schools.co.uk, but it's worth reading the whole book too. Feedback is welcome.

I wrote this as a paired task for use in Y4, but it might be used in other year groups, especially if tweaked. The choice between reasons is intended to encourage children to absorb the language of reasoning, which will help them not just in SPaG tests but across the curriculum. The task is unlikely to take more than a few minutes to complete, so it could be used as a starter, early morning task or part of a lesson.

This poem was written in the nineteenth century and is a gentle criticism of employment of children in nineteenth century Bedfordshire (especially in the area of Luton and Dunstable). My notes cover two reading lessons and are aimed at year 4, but could be used across KS2. This might be used when learning local history, while looking at writers who comment on social issues (eg. Charles Dickens), or when looking at child labour generally.