A lesson and resources to support the teaching of the opening of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It focuses on analysing and translating Shakespeare’s language, the context of the time and empathising with the main characters. This can be done with prior knowledge of the play or as an introduction (but would need some extra scaffolding/explanation) - I use the videos from BBC Teach to recap the plot with the children. I use an LQ (Learning Question) rather than Learning Objective but feel free to change to fit your needs. I have used this with Year 6 but would work for Year 7 too.

A lesson on expanding knowledge of different punctuation marks and practising using ‘Holes’ as an inspiration. Can be used as a stand alone lesson or as part of a ‘Holes’ scheme of work. The lesson focuses on higher end punctuation: semicolons, dashes, brackets, colons; as well as commas as part of subordinate or embedded clause. Therefore, prior knowledge of these is helpful but not necessary (can just take the lesson slower if starting from no knowledge). Using stills from the movie version of ‘Holes’, children write creative sentences about them with a particular punctuation focus. Lots of opportunity for feedback and sharing ideas.

A lesson based on Act 1 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream focusing on the argument between Hermia and Helena. Involves children reworking the passage into modern English and acting out in pairs. Finally moving onto a writing task with an example included.

A lesson on what pathetic fallacy is and how to use it based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Tests and resources for testing language used in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Using Puck’s love potion from A Midsummer Night’s Dream as inspiration, the lesson discusses Shakespeare’s use of potions (I have included a reading of the witches’ potion making in Macbeth) and then gets pupils to create their own. This should be in a poetic format with the challenge for higher-ability pupils to add rhyme to it. A model example has been included.

A lesson to help reinforce, identify and practise pupils’ learning of different word classes (noun/adjective/verb/adverb/pronoun/determiner/conjunction/preposition). Used in the first term of Y5 but could be used for Y4/6 depending on your cohort’s ability. The lesson begins with a recap and simple sentences before getting the children to build up and then practise writing more description sentences independently.

A useful task to give to children studying A Midsummer Night’s Dream either as paired work, a cover lesson task, homework or just as independent work.

This lesson/activity focuses particularly on annotating and analysing the speech made by Oberon following on from Puck’s mistakes using the love potion. It uses videos from BBC Teach to recap the events of the Act and then children to work independently/in pairs to read through the passage with directed questions to answer (either in discussion or as formal responses). Slide format from Slides Go.

A lesson to follow learning of Act 1 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Students put in groups to create a script for a news report. If resources available, this can then be videoed which provides a fun project for them to recap the plot!