Present day stories from another culture, not including myths, legends, fables but actual real life fiction.
I was tired of pupils believing that every story from Africa involved talking animals, so I wrote my own story about a young man who is tricked by a boy on his way home from work. It highlights the differences and similarities in Ugandan (African) culture and UK culture.
In contrast to this (and linked with a true story) I've also written a story about a boy in China who lives in a rich urban area, again in contrast to most of the pupils in my school.
How can I build the tension in my story using time connectives?
An idea I had whist teaching time connectives and planning narrative using story mountains.
Not only a great display giving children ideas about pace, paragraphs and sentence openers, but can initially serve as an activity where children stick the time connectives where they think they should be on the tension/story mountain.
The six text type skeleton plans by Sue Palmer (Writing across the curriculum) include recounts and newspaper reports. However, in the National Literacy Strategy (Which I'm still following!) the Year 4 UNit 2 non fiction unit is on Recounts: Newspaper and Magazines. This is neither a simple first person recount, nor a newspaper report! So I've created a text type skeleton (Which also serves as a writing frame). Words format so you can adapt it.
This is a Varjak Paw activity book that I’ve created to accompany my live stream of the book, weekdays at 6.30 on YouTube, with kind permission from S.F. Said.
I’ve also uploaded a ‘Double Sided’ version of the booklet that says to write around the edge of the sheet, rather than on the other side.
Mr Wickins Reads Varjak Paw here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es9xEKyZjE4
Have fun and stay safe!
I wrote this piece of text to model to the children (In Y6) how to build the tension, as there were no examples I could find for Greek Myths. Everything I could find was very 'factual' and rushed over the details!
I've tried to focus on "show me, don't tell me" where the writer is really thinking about purpose, and how they want the reader to feel (implying, rather than stating the obvious).
I used it as an activity by asking the pupils to text mark the piece, highlighting and annotating techniques, words and phrases that interested them and that built the tension.
I hope it's helpful and saves you time!
All pupils from year 3 to year 6 benefit from regular practise in the 4 operations. I have created this system as a starter once a week (they are now down to 5 mins for 8 questions!) where the children self mark and correct. They are now very secure on their arithmetic!
This system automatically generates a weekly challenge for any pupil of any ability, for the 4 operations in maths. The excel document and the word document together form a 'mail merge' that will produce a set of 8 problems (or however many you choose) for each child that are different each time.
If you are familiar with the mail merge process, you should be able to set this up no problem, but please do get in touch if you have any issues.
You can of course edit the 'weekly challenge' document to give only 4 problems, or 1, or even 16 (maximum is 24, 6 questions per operation).
I've attached a picture of what it could look like in books.
Instructions:
Open the excel doc, paste in the names of your pupils in the tab marked: "Edit only this"
Then, using the ‘operation ladders’ tab as guidance, decide which ‘rung’ each child needs to be on for each operation (again, putting the numbers of the rung in the ‘edit only this’ tab for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division)
You can also change the group names (see bottom of ‘operation ladders’ sheet)
Weekly Challenge word doc:
Every time you want to send out a new weekly challenge, open the excel doc, save it, close it (this will refresh and change the numbers so they are different from the last challenge)
You may need to connect the word doc to the excel doc when you open the word doc, make sure they are saved in the same folder. Make sure you link to the worksheet called: Data - Select for merge
You can add/ remove any of the subtitles/fields using the mailmerge function in the word doc.
I'm happy for you to contact me if you have any issues or questions.
A short song (40 seconds) giving three ways to solve the problem of run-on sentences, with visual examples (full stop/ capital letter, comma and a connective/conjunction, or a semi colon).
The idea being that music aids memory retention and increases engagement and enjoyment of learning in children. If they can sing a skill, they will remember it!
This is a song teaching children about adverbs and how to use them. You can sing this song together as a class, and act out the different adverbs for extra fun (and to help them remember!). I've actually heard children humming this as they write, to remind them where and how to add adverbs.
Music aids memory retention and increases engagement and enjoyment of learning in children. If they can sing a skill, they will remember it!
As planning narrative features so heavily in the curriculum, we need to provide our children with a variety of different planning methods and proformas. Here is one I created that is character focused, which will track changes in the character over the course of the story.
This project is designed to improve digital literacy skills in IT, as well as literacy and logical sequencing skills.
Using an adventure quest/ myths and legends theme, pupils first plan and then build an interactive story, where the user chooses what the main character does. Using PowerPoint in Kiosk mode, pupils use hyperlinks as a way of navigating through the choices (rather than clicking through as a slide show). This enables the reader to play in role as the main character and attempt to complete the story successfully.
I’ve included my own example interactive story - The Blacksmiths Children, along with the design plan that matches that story. I’ve also included a blank design plan for children who require it, however I usually get children to make their own plans on blank paper so as not to restrict their creativity.
This project works at any stage of KS2; I use it as a platform to teach the following digital literacy and IT skills:
Opening and saving projects in specific folder locations,
adding and editing text, and text boxes, (including font, style and size)
adding and changing format of shapes,
inserting and editing hyperlinks,
Changing background and themes,
Safely searching for images online
inserting, resizing, rotating and layering images
Working with transitions and animations
The following computing skills:
Logical sequence
Planning using an algorithm
Testing and de-bugging
The following Literacy skills:
Planning a piece of writing
Reading and editing
Writing for a purpose/ specific audience
Using imaginative and creative imagery to describe characters, places, events.
Can be used with any year group. Cut out and sort the algorithm, adding in flowlines.
Note: Some children may put 'turn on tap' before 'put bottle under tap', this creates an interesting discussion point, as both algorithms achieve the goal. However, water is not wasted if the bottle is put under the tap before turning it on (Although there will be some clever child who states the tap must run cold first before putting the bottle under!).
Extensions: Get the children to add in their own 'selection' (conditional operators; if, then, else) or decision diamond, e.g. is the bottle full? Yes - turn tap off, no - leave tap on.
This activity is referred to in my online CPD videos: Delve in, for twelve min! See the video attached...
For more info and to book me for training, please visit www.rundontwalk.co.uk
This display uses the context of Algorithms (in the computing curriculum) to demonstrate the process of learning a new skill. This can be referred to in class to boost resilience, independent learning (the 'find help' instruction could refer to teacher, but also peers, books, research etc), but also to remind, refresh and teach the importance of the clear, precise and chronological nature of algorithms. It can also be a teaching point for decision diamonds, and how they only ever have 2 outcomes (yes, no). Included in the download is a picture of what it looks like, and the master file with all the parts separate for you to edit/ print.
Let me know if it works for you!
This is also mentioned in my online CPD video: Delve in, for twelve min!
Please visit www.rundontwalk.co.uk for more info, and to book me for training.
(You may need to download the free font 'VCT Scream it loud 2' if you want it to edit the word doc, otherwise just use the pdf!)
These resources are designed to accompany a tutorial video shown on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMbPYQay1NY
Itchy Bytes are computing lesson starter or plenary activities, designed to engage the children in recognising and interpreting what each bit of code does, improve their knowledge of sequence, repetition and selection, whilst taking part in a fun activity.
This is part of a series of Teacher CPD, put together by Phil Wickins from Run Don’t Walk.
www.rundontwalk.co.uk
This is ScratchUp! A cunning combination of Sketchup (3D CAD) and Scratch (Coding) to bring your pupils’ programming projects to life!
The idea for this emerged after teaching my classes Sketchup as a specific CAD tool within the DT curriculum to design lunar buggies, before then proceeding to the build stage. I was so impressed at their grasp of the software and 3D design as a concept, that I wanted to set a new challenge.
Similarly, they had progressed extremely well in my computing lessons until they were quite proficient using coding constructs and concepts within Scratch, so what was the next step?
I noticed that their sprite and background design within Scratch always fell short of their best, probably as they were so keen to code and get their project working. It was all coloured blobs and stick men; purely functional, but little in the way of inspiring graphical user interfaces!
Enter: Sketchup. I decided that they could use their design skills to create high quality sprites, then export them as a 2D graphic to be loaded into Scratch as a costume.
And then it hit me.

Why not export a series of rotations of a 3D sprite, load multiple images into a sprite’s costume, then animate it, so it appears as a rotating 3D sprite?
The possibilities are endless! Take a look around this resource which includes my presentation from the CAS (Computing at School) National Conference 2018, the list of angles I used for my car direction, my ScratchUp examples, pupil Sketchup and ScratchUp examples and a Sketchup help sheet.
Let me know how you get on!!!
www.rundontwalk.co.uk
A quick and easy way to teach your class 'Selection' (Conditional operators: if, then, else)
Watch the video 'Delve in, for twelve min! Part 2: Selection'
Follow the lesson plan
Use the pre-made Scratch project.
First, familiarise yourself with the terms Pattern Recognition and Decomposition, by watching Part 5 of “Delve in, for twelve min!” (Video linked above).
Give the children the ‘Pattern Recognition’ scratch project. Children have to find different ways to reduce the amount of code that is repeated.
I’ve included 3 different solutions;
Broadcast (Not always the best solution, please see Part 6 of “Delve in, for twelve min!” on ‘concurrency and dependency’ )
Make a Block function (more advanced when you include number input)
Using Make a block, selection and repetition (You can see how much smoother the code runs straight away)
Please let me know how you get on!
Cheers
Phil Wickins
This resource demonstrates how repetition can be taught using Scratch, as shown in the online CPD training video: Delve in, for twelve min!
Please watch the video, and others in the series, on YouTube (Search for “Delve in, for twelve min!”
As described in my “Delve in, for twelve min!” video CPD, these are example pro-formas to give pupils to design their computing projects. These could be Scratch projects; animations, games, quizzes etc. The design process, which is largely missed in computing, forms an essential part of a coding project, and also provides many benefits in terms of AFL.
Please use in conjunction with the training video, and also check out the entire “Delve in, for twelve min!” series:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3kA-gpaSB2a6Vfdq04rGt5xcKQg8FG8x
