This is a ‘long’ unit – the topic lasts the whole of the summer term and provides cross-curriculum learning opportunities. Children learn about rivers and the effects they have on the landscape. There are lesson plans & ideas for field trips. [River Dart specific; could be adapted]. I have pulled together ideas from others (thanks), é added my own bits to create interesting and memorable learning experiences, hopefully. Let me know...

Lesson planning that links with History theme - Tudors, rich and poor. Texts include 'The Prince, the Cook and the Cunning King' by Terry Deary, &'The Queen&';s Token' by Pamela Oldfield and the dvd of &'The Prince and the Pauper&'; (Aidan Quinn, Alan Bates). We also read 'My Friend, Walter&' by Michael Morpurgo, as a class book, but did not use it to cover specific Literacy objectives. Hope you find the plans useful - do let me know. just added new format - teaching and learning sequence [new layout in use at school] - some may prefer this to the lesson plan set up already attached. : - )

This is how I am kicking off my unit on Impressionism. I teach Year 4. We do art for a whole afternoon! Ideas fo how I might continue follow...Hope this is useful - please let me know. Or share ideas for improvement or continuation of unit!

Planned for Year 4 but could easily be adapted. Children are organised in mixed ability teams to collect clues, solve basic calculations and use the answers to break a coded message. All helpful for a teacher to observe work patterns and behaviours of a new class. Let me know how it goes. [Calculations and names can be changed]. Just noticed that there is one mistake, yikes! You need to change the clues so that Q4 is Double 8, (not double 16). The activity worked well with my new class. Very interesting...

Based on Theseus and the Minotaur, from 'Greek Myths' by Marcia Williams, this scheme of work follows a Talk for Writing approach to planning the unit. I really enjoyed teaching this unit and the children were very enthusiastic, producing stories to be proud of. ['Minotaur Day' was particularly successful!] Please leave feedback and let me know how you get on if you use any of the ideas.

Based on Dick King Smith's 'The Hodgeheg' this scheme of work follows a Talk for Writing approach to planning the unit. it takes longer than the allotted time ,if you stick to five literacy lessons a week. If your timetable can be flexible, you may stick to time, or you will, like me, overrun and find yourself teaching a poetry unit through guided reading. I really enjoyed teaching this unit and the children were very enthusiastic, producing stories to be proud of. Please leave feedback and let me know how you get on if you use any of the ideas.

This PPT takes the children through the days of the week and how they link us to the Anglo-Saxons, i.e. all but one being named after gods and goddesses of Norse Mythology. It took me a while to make so I thought it might save someone else some time. I did look up all the facts so they should be accurate. I prepared this for KS2 assembly, which is why it has Saxon Lord's Prayer at the end.

This is an afternoon of activity on a Snowflakes theme - used to kick off our unit on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - Always Winter but Never Christmas - and provide instant display. 2D shape, reflective symmetry, rotational symmetry, art and craft skills, science, geography - truly cross-curricular - and children are usually fascinated by 'Snowflake Bentley'...hope you like the ideas...let me know. PS. Making snowflakes took longer than allotted time - continued next day in Maths.

To use before teaching a unit on Non-chronological Report writing, to assess where the children are at. I put this together for my Y3/4 class and thought it could save someone else some time. There is a brief lesson plan, a worksheet for children to take notes, and a link to 'Worms are Wonderful' - a short film on YouTube, for which I can take no credit. They are then all equipped with similar information to write a report.

This rap has good rhythm and rhyme. Some of it is entirely my own. Some of it came from working with the children. The odd line is from elsewhere - you’ll recognise bits I am sure. Sept 2019: revised and improved - with references to apples for this year [malus domestica]. Both original and new versions available here. My class wore caps and bling and tried out the ‘attitude’ to give a very confident and entertaining performance at Harvest. Many others have enjoyed using it since I first posted it. Please enjoy using it, adapting it, or extracting some of the ideas for your own performances. And please don’t pass it off as your own though. Have fun - and leave feedback!

There are many RUCSAC resources available... a method for solving maths word problems. This is, I hope, child-friendly - I intend to use it with my new class. I have taken the main elements and someone else's lovely rucksack image and made it all colourful. I hope it saves someone else some time. :-)

This is not a complete unit. But you will find detailed lesson plans to kick off the unit with a Tudor merchants theme. I used it for the children to find out more about the subject than we could do in the history timeslot. It also provided fantastic pupil-generated work for display. The rest of my Unit linked to science - bones etc and was planned by my student so I have not uploaded it. But this may be of use to some - do let me know!

This is adapted from the Nuffield Foundation resource that is on this site...basically condensed into a one-session lesson, omitting printing technique. It states learning opportunities and adds lesson structure to something lots of us do for Christmas parties. There are some good images to inspire themed hat designs too. Have fun...

Three differentiated sheets: 'Yo olde Theatrical props Warehouse&' daily hire charges [easy], weekly hire charges [middle], monthly hire charges [harder]. Children can create own addition calculations, use sheets for mental calculation, or more..e.g. cost of two week&';s hire of ...you have £200 budget, what will you hire? You have six archers...cost of their equipment for a day?... Use sheets as you wish! Word doc allows you to alter costs. Hope you find this resource useful. Please leave feedback if you like it!

We visited a Tudor merchant's house and looked at building techniques - timber-frame etc. then researched merchant's homes to produce an annotated display of images. In small groups the chn developed cooperation skills and produced junk models to resemble Tudor merchant's homes. This sheet is designed for evaluation. I thought others might find it useful - it includes a selection of images too. Adapt as you wish. Please let me know your thoughts.

I created these to give choice [beyond coloured dots] and to inject a fun element in to using arrays. The sheets can be printed out and cut to size by you or your pupils to illustrate various mulitplication sentences etc. There is a lot of choice...stars, elephants, cupcakes...hopefully something for everyone. There is also the obligatory pelvic bone for 'hip hip arrays&' [sorry, but Bruce told me to do it] and rose-hips for the same poor joke - perhaps not so successful. Have fun!

Activity sheets for independent group work on this subject. 1. Definition task 2. Creating compound words form base words [less able]. 3. Using base words to create crazy compounds. Ideas are not original I know but hopefully sheets are stimulating and may save you some time!

May be useful for some - feel free to adapt. Let me know your thoughts...

Ideally we would all like to have a chat with our TAs after every lesson but there isn't always time. This sheet is useful for TAs to complete so you can see [a] how the children got on, [b] how the activity went, and [c] to enable informed planning for the next session. I expect most of you have your own versions, but a colleague told me that this one was really clear and very useful, so I thought I would share...

This unit covers learning objectives for Light and how humans see. Planned for a bright Y4 class, summer term, it builds on previous learning & extends beyond usual expectations for LKS2 - may be OK for UKS2. The sessions incl. hands-on investigations é real-life contexts [shadow theatre; Dragons' Den] to stimulate and enthuse my lovely learners - ideas are a mix of my own and others incl some from this site. I hope you find the plans useful - do let me know if you have improvements or additions.

'History in the Making' This two-part lesson encourages children to reflect on their learning about the features of newspaper articles (Year 4 Literacy unit), think about their own experiences of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, and create an article about the Jubilee, working independently - alot like 'big write' - with word list and layout options for support. It relates to the experiences of our local children but could be useful to others with a little adaptation - thought it might save someone some time.