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 Telegraph in 2013, a new species of tarantula roughly the size of a dinner plate is discovered in a Sri Lankan village. Included in this pack is a copy of the article (still available online) and linking comprehension questions suitable for KS2. Enjoy!

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 2013, a new map of Pangaea, the supercontinent from 300 million years ago, shows where modern day countries would have been located in the ancient land mass. Included in this pack is a copy of the article and linking comprehension questions suitable for KS2. Enjoy!

This worksheet develops children's understanding of maps and atlases by addressing the following criteria: • I can explain what ‘latitude’ is • I can explain what ‘longitude’ is • I know why we use latitudinal and longitudinal lines on maps/atlases • I can estimate the latitudinal/longitudinal points of a location • I can use given latitudinal/longitudinal numbers to find a point on a map It would be most suitable for KS2 classes and is differentiated to suit different learners.

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 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!

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!

After years and years of finding the monitoring of children's progress in subjects such as Science, PE and ICT to be difficult both in terms of practicality and time, I was made Science coordinator at my school, and therefore had the opportunity to face the conundrum head on. I was determined, especially after "assessment without levels" came in, to find a more time manageable, yet effective and clear, method of tracking pupils progress outside of the big three. Therefore I came up with this; an easily adaptable tracking sheet which allows teachers for each class to simply input their register and planned Science objectives for the half term. Tracking then works like a traffic-light system - if under the first objective some children displayed really good or even advanced understanding, I put a red dot in the first column by their name. If some children really took to the learning well and came away with a good understanding from the lesson, I gave them a green dot to show they were on track. And if children seemed to struggle with an objective and didn't come away with a clear understanding, I gave them a yellow dot. (FYI - this was tracked discreetly during and after the lesson). ADDITIONALLY - during the next lesson, I would look to start by recapping from the previous week's objective, targeting children on yellow and green with my questioning. If a child I had previously dotted yellow seemed to show a good recollection of key ideas and facts then I would add a green dot next to their original yellow dot to override it. All the above instructions are at the top of the tracking sheet. Additionally, this assessment tool allows teachers to monitor what Science objectives they have taught through the year, to ensure expected coverage, and can help coordinators ensure that classes across the school have good coverage of the curriculum and are not repeating the same topics unnecessarily.

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.

This resource consists of three sequential lessons focusing on the understanding of perimeter. Suitable for KS2 (previously used in Y3 & Y4 but easily adaptable to extend higher year groups), it consists of a lesson notebook for all three days, differentiated worksheets for the first objective and a further worksheet for the second objective. The objectives and criteria for all three days are: L.I.: To understand perimeter Success Criteria * I know perimeter is the distance around the outside of a shape * I know perimeter is a measurement of length * I know perimeter can be measured in mm, cm or m * I know we need to use addition to calculate perimeter L.I.: To be able to calculate perimeter Success Criteria * I know perimeter is the distance around the outside of a shape * I know perimeter is a measurement of length * I can count squares around a shape to calculate perimeter Challenge: I can add the sides of a shape to calculate perimeter L.I.: To be able to solve problems involving perimeter Success Criteria * I can read the question carefully and identify key words * I know perimeter is the distance around the outside of a shape * I can add the sides of a shape to calculate perimeter * I can include the unit of measurement in my answer

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!

This resource is part of a whole half term of engaging lessons which I have used from years 3-5 to teach children about Animals including Humans. This lesson initially recaps children's understanding of human and animal skeletons, before focusing on developing their knowledge of food groups. It includes questions to stimulate children's ideas and understanding, various interactive links to engage and support, and suggested tasks to allow children to demonstrate and challenge their understanding. The Lesson Objective and Success Criteria are: LI: To know the different food groups Success Criteria I can explain what animals and humans need to stay healthy I can name common food groups I can name example foods in each group

This is a five-lesson half-term resource on the cross-curricular topic, Earth Matters. Containing a Notebook flip and a worksheet, the KS2-suitable resource develops children's understanding of biomes and eco-systems in a range of engaging lessons, including research project, making a poster, making a 'dome biome' and making group powerpoint presentations which could then be used in a class assembly. The Learning Intentions/Objectives over the five lessons are: 1) To understand the features of biomes 2) To understand the interdependency of organisms in a biome 3) + 4) To understand that eco-systems are delicate / To know about global environmental problems and solutions 5) To know about global environmental problems and solutions / To prepare a presentation about a topic

I’ve used this lesson every Autumn to engage children into the Literacy skills needed to write a good instruction text, by linking it to how to use sparklers safely on bonfire night. This pack includes a Notebook and Powerpoint presentation for one lesson, and differentiated worksheets for pupils to plan their instructions before independently writing them up into their books. Suitable for KS2 - and do get a health and safety check before demonstrating with a real life sparkler. I did, and it amazed the kids and really energised their writing! UPDATE 02/11/2018 - RESOURCE NOW INCLUDES PRESENTATION IN POWERPOINT FORMAT!

I have used Pixar's brilliant 'Lifted' animation for two short-burst English/Literacy lessons - one as a general recount and the other as a first person recount from one character's point of view. The latter is the resource that I have shared, as I found it to be the most useful out of the two in my teaching practise. I requires children to infer a character's thoughts and feelings and to convert a given narrative into the first person, therefore allowing teachers to test a range of writing skills in one lesson, which the children themselves love because of the engaging resource!

This resource consists of various word problems themed around money which require knowledge of various mathematical skills, from calculating percentages to division. Additionally, it helps to introduce economic topics to primary pupils, such as mortgages. Suitable for UKS2 / Year 6 learners.

A handy worksheet to help children to understand the concept of 'past' and 'to' when telling the time. It includes a blank analogue clock and times to cut out and place on the correct place on the clock. The instructions on the sheet are as follows: Step 1: Neatly cut out your clock Step 2: Stick it under your learning intention Step 3: Neatly cut out the times in the boxes Step 4: Can you match the times in the boxes to the numbers around the clock? Check with an adult before you stick them in!

This worksheet allows children to practice converting between cm and m units of measurement by using a real life stimulus; the lengths of various reptiles. Included on the worksheet is an LO, reminder of the 1m = 100cm conversion, and a table giving the name of each reptile, a photo, and one of the measurements, with a blank space next to it to complete the conversion. Some measurements are given in cm and others in m.