How do animals keep warm in cold climates? A complete KS2 Science lesson suited to the evolution and adaptation unit. During this lesson, children invesitage the insulating properties of different materials and consider how blubber helps animals to survive and thrive in their cold habitats. This lesson includes a Powerpoint, worksheet, instructions sheet and fact sheet. There is also a sticker sheet which can be stuck in children’s books along with photos and work to explain the investigation.

A complete set of morning activity/starter slides for the second Autumn half term. 48 slides filled with challenges. Perfect to have on the IWB whilst children enter the classroom on a morning. Children can complete a variety of challenges on their whiteboards or these could be printed for their books. Slides feature spelling, grammar, maths and writing content along with other topical areas of the curriculum. Other terms are available and feature questions linked to the season or school calendar e.g. authors for world book day and science for science week. My class began completing these challenges on their whiteboards (the screen being frozen on the suitable slide on the IWB) whilst I read feelings charts, greeted children and took the register. They were required to answer at least 3 challenges per day before reading, accessing the library or Sumdog and TT Rockstars. This was a perfect pre-assembly task which we then reviewed as a class to begin the day. The content features the Year 6 curriculum along with questions recapping learning from previous classes. A variety of questions and formats ensures there is always something for any ability to access.

Resources to share with staff and use within reading lessons and interventions. These flashcards and information handouts support reading with fluency and expression. Flashcards are to be printed with punctuation prosody explanations on the back. Before/after reading staff ask children to name the punctuation mark. Can they find an example of it in the text? What does this punctuation mean? How does your voice change when reading the sentence containing it? When used for all reading interventions and when referred to during whole class/guided sessions, these resources will ensure that staff and children have a consistent approach in developing their prosody. This provides the reader with the modelling and skills to know what reading should sound like.

A quick quiz to be used in classes or during an assembly to boost recall of authors. Includes a range of traditional and more contemporary authors. One slide for each day of the week. Could be used as a quick morning activity. On Monday ask children how many authors they can list and then review on Friday after completing the quiz. Each day children are presented with photographs of three authors and three names. Children match the a, b, c, photos to their names. Can they name any books they have written? Useful as a prompt for discussion. This could be during reading for pleasure time. Also attached is an assembly on authors. This was used to celebrate Author’s Day on November 1st but could be easily adapted for a reading assembly or reading for pleasure mini lesson. This includes a guess the author round with widgits (images) for children to guess the story/author.

Four word class sorting grids with the relevant word class sorting words to be used for grammar lessons or interventions. The word class grids work well printed on A3 and children then sort the words in pairs into the correct sections of the grid. Great for quick identification of any misconceptions and mini plenaries within a grammar lesson/discussion.

An extract from Chapter 8 of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Useful for a stand alone whole class reading session, booster groups or 1:1. Features an extract from the text along with 12 words for children to locate and highlight in the text. Place the timer on the board and children have 3 minutes maximum to locate as many of the words in the text as possible. Children always love this speedy approach to starting a reading lesson. Useful for improving quick identification of vocabularly in the text. Children then complete the questions featuring a range of VIPERS content domains. They are designed to feature a range of question formats that mimic the style of the reading SATs, e.g. tick box, find one word, provide evidence. Questions and answers included.

A complete set of morning activity/starter slides for the first Autumn half term. 46 slides filled with challenges. Perfect to have on the IWB whilst children enter the classroom on a morning. Children can complete a variety of challenges on their whiteboards or these could be printed for their books. Slides feature spelling, grammar, maths, writing and science content along with other topical areas of the curriculum. Other terms are available and feature questions linked to the season or school calendar e.g. Christmas in December, authors for world book day. My class began completing these challenges on their whiteboards (the screen being frozen on the suitable slide on the IWB) whilst I read feelings charts, greeted children and took the register. They were required to answer at least 3 challenges per day before reading, accessing the library or Sumdog and TT Rockstars. This was a perfect pre-assembly task which we then reviewed as a class to begin the day. The content features the Year 6 curriculum along with questions recapping learning from previous classes. A variety of questions and formats ensures there is always something for any ability to access.

A Year 6 reading lesson for a World War One theme. The lesson focuses on two content domains that children often find a challenge: inference and summarising. It also features teaching on how to expand answers using point, evidence and elaboration. Powerpoint and worksheet included. There is also a matching activity with the poem split into parts. Children match each part of the poem to the explanation of its meaning.

Reading questions and answers based on the chapters of Once. Used with my Year 6 class. Questions cover the variety of the KS2 reading domains using VIPERS. They are designed to feature a range of question formats that mimic the style of the reading SATs.

A set of 24 ‘teach me, tell me’ cards which feature questions and answers for children to define grammatical terms. These work brilliantly for recapping grammatical features throughout the year. The cards feature a question, answer and example word related to grammatical vocabulary. These cover the grammatical expectations for the end of KS2 SATs tests and writing. Each child in the classroom/group is given one card. They move around the room and take it in turns to read their question card to another child. If their partner answers incorrectly, they show them the card and read the correct answer. The children swap cards once they have both read their questions and answers. Children should have opportunities to define the same word multiple times, which gives them ample chance for repeated practise of terminology. The game can be simplified by only photocopying a select number of the cards, and duplicating them so that children are exposed more to specific questions.

How many grammatical features can your class guess in 2 minutes? This is a word guessing game where two teams take it in turns to guess as many taboo words as possible against the clock (your own stopwatch required). Perfect for a game pre or post a grammar or literacy lesson or just before the GPS SAT paper. Usually played in my classroom with a couple of pupils selected from one team. They stand with their backs against the IWB and their team have 2 minutes to provide definitions/examples of the chosen grammatical vocabulary. They score one point per correct word defined. Any ‘taboo’ red words provided minus a point, and they are allowed to skip one word. Then the teams swap. If you run out of words, just shuffle the slides around and play again. Any terms the children struggle with, you can pause to do a mini teach before playing again, perhaps duplicating these slides so children have further practise of this word. The taboo words serve as both a challenge and a helpful prompt to the teams defining the words as they provide accurate examples.

A times table game for small group or whole class play. The teacher or a volunteer says a times table and two children have to race to splat the correct answer with either their finger (if on A4) or a fly swatter. The teacher then calls, 3, 2, 1 and the children shout out the answer in unison. This can also be placed on the IWB for children to splat but the beauty of having boards between pairs, is everyone can play at once.

A grammar game for small group or whole class play. The teacher or a volunteer says either a definition or an example word and two children have to race to splat the correct answer with either their finger (if on A4) or a fly swatter. The teacher then calls, 3, 2, 1 and the children shout out the answer in unison. This can also be placed on the IWB for children to splat but the beauty of having boards between pairs, is everyone can play at once. Features word classes e.g. nouns, prepositions …

43 slides of grammatical terms and examples for children. Useful for quickly referring to grammatical content or as a place to signpost staff, student teachers and children to if they need speedy clarification of a term. The first slide features grammatical terms from the national curriculum which are hyperlinked to a slide which features example words/sentences.

I collected ideas whilst developing Reading for Pleasure within my school. Here is a document I handed out to staff to remind them of simple ways to encourage reading for pleasure within classrooms.