This is a set of maths targets for use with Year 5 children in the first half term of the academic year. Suitable for teachers, teaching assistants, parents, home schoolers and trainee teachers. Can be used at home or at school to monitor progress, for homework or as a group activity. The full set of Maths Targets for Y5 and for Years 1 - 6 is available from Teaching Rainbows on TES Resources.

This is a complete literacy unit of 15 lessons aimed at children aged 9 - 12 based on the poem The Listeners by Walter de la Mare. This is an amazingly rich piece of poetry and lends itself to some fantastic thinking, discussion, drama activities and creative writing. The resource contains a three week set of outline lessons plans learning objectives success criteria key teaching points to establish. lesson resources additional suggestions for cross curricular working. This will be of interest to you if you are working with children aged 9 - 12.

A comprehensive set of teaching notes and related resource sheets for six cross curricular, creative, dinosaur themed activities for children aged 7 - 11. Designed to creatively develop skills in reading and research, art and design, maths and creative writing, each activity takes between 2 and 3 hours to complete. There are lots of resources available to develop a child’s maths and English skills but very little with a focus on develop creativity across the curriculum. As an experienced primary school teacher, the author knows the power and positive impact gained through harnessing a child’s innate creativity on both their their engagement and learning potential. All the activities have been tried and tested with primary school children across the country. Dinosaurs have long been a source of great inspiration and fascination to children so these activities encourage them to find out more and use what they have learned to create their very own, unique, but totally believable dinosaur. The material is presented on a downloadable PDF document to help children learn the skills needed, provides clear self assessment criteria to enable them to evaluate their work and identifying areas for celebration and further development. Each activity is designed to take between 2 and 3 hours and to be a fun, as well as an educational, learning experience.

A comprehensive set of teaching slides with voice over on powerpoint and related teaching resource masters for six cross curricular, creative, dinosaur themed activities for children aged 7 - 11. Designed to creatively develop skills in reading and research, art and design, maths and creative writing, each activity takes between 2 and 3 hours to complete. There are lots of resources available to develop a child’s maths and English skills but very little with a focus on develop creativity across the curriculum. As an experienced primary school teacher, the author knows the power and positive impact gained through harnessing a child’s innate creativity on both their their engagement and learning potential. All the activities have been tried and tested with primary school children across the country. Dinosaurs have long been a source of great inspiration and fascination to children so these activities encourage them to find out more and use what they have learned to create their very own, unique, but totally believable dinosaur. The material is presented on a powerpoint presentation to help children learn the skills needed, provides clear self assessment criteria to enable them to evaluate their work and identifying areas for celebration and further development. Each activity is designed to take between 2 and 3 hours and to be a fun, as well as an educational, learning experience.

5 x 15 minute literacy and maths activities for Year 3. Are you… Struggling to get your children to practice their basic literacy and maths skills during the half term holiday? Looking for some short, age appropriate resources to send home with the children to complete each day? Searching for something with answers included? I’ve been a class teacher just like you, and spent hours designing suitable resources to encourage my pupils to keep working on their maths and literacy skills through the holidays. That’s why I created these resources to support you. Attached, you will find extracts from some of the activities included in the pack. Each pack contains 5, 15 minute activities for your pupils to do at home - one for each day of the half term holiday - including number and word activities, reading comprehensions and maths puzzles - all with answer sheets included.

In just ten minutes per day, this resource is proven to improve a child’s speed and accuracy with multiplication facts to support all areas of calculation in mathematics. In order to access the Year 5 and 6 maths curricula, children benefit greatly from the ability to rapidly recall their times tables facts. Without this skill, children spend valuable time having to ‘work out’ their times tables facts and this has a negative impact on accuracy, efficiency and most importantly confidence, in mathematics. This Resource contains… Five sheets of multiplication questions. Five sheets of division questions. Three recording charts to monitor progress. How this resource works The Question Sheets. Each times-table sheet contains seventy-five questions arranged in three columns. The aim is to complete as many of these questions as possible in ten minutes without missing any of the questions out! For younger children, or children who are less confident with their times tables, the sheets could be divided into three separate columns so that they are only faced with twenty-five questions at a time! How to record progress Which Recording Chart to use. At the end of the ten-minute session, choose one of the Recording Charts included in the pack. • If a child is not confident with their tables and is only working on one column, use Recording Chart 1. This will record a maximum of 18 questions so will build confidence in the early stages of proficiency. • If the children are moving onto the second column , choose the Recording Chart 2 • If the children are completing over 36 questions in 10 minutes, choose Recording Chart 3. Completing the Recording Chart. It is recommended that the children complete the Recording Chart of their scores so that they can see how they improve over time. The Recording Chart is divided into columns. Complete one column on the Recording Chart for each ten-minute session. Record the number of questions answered in one colour. Use the answer sheet to mark the questions. Criss cross over the column already completed to show the number of questions that were correctly answered. (This will help the child see how accurate they are as well as how speedy they are. If a child is getting all their questions right, their challenge is to do more in the time available. If a child is completing many more questions than they are answering correctly, the next challenge is to slow down and aim for greater accuracy.) Challenge and Extension. Use the Division Sheets in place of the multiplication questions. Reduce the time limit allowed to complete the questions. Focus on the time taken to complete the whole sheet. How quickly can you complete the seventy-five questions?

5 x 15 minute literacy and maths activities for Year 3. Are you… Struggling to get your children to practice their basic literacy and maths skills during the half term holiday? Looking for some short, age appropriate resources to send home with the children to complete each day? Searching for something with answers included? I’ve been a class teacher just like you, and spent hours designing suitable resources to encourage my pupils to keep working on their maths and literacy skills through the holidays. That’s why I created these resources to support you. Attached, you will find extracts from some of the activities included in the pack. Each pack contains 5, 15 minute activities for your pupils to do at home - one for each day of the half term holiday - including number and word activities, reading comprehensions and maths puzzles - all with answer sheets included.

5 x 15 minute literacy and maths activities for Year 3 to do at home. Are you… Struggling to get your children to practice their basic literacy and maths skills during the half term holiday? Looking for some short, age appropriate resources to send home with the children to complete each day? Searching for something with answers included? I’ve been a class teacher just like you, and spent hours designing suitable resources to encourage my pupils to keep working on their maths and literacy skills through the holidays. That’s why I created these resources to support you. Each pack contains 5, 15 minute activities for your pupils to do at home - one for each day of the half term holiday - including number and word activities, reading comprehension and maths puzzles - all with answer sheets included.

5 x 15 minute literacy and maths activities for Year 4. Are you… Struggling to get your children to practice their basic literacy and maths skills during the half term holiday? Looking for some short, age appropriate resources to send home with the children to complete each day? Searching for something with answers included? I’ve been a class teacher just like you, and spent hours designing suitable resources to encourage my pupils to keep working on their maths and literacy skills through the holidays. That’s why I created these resources to support you. Attached, you will find extracts from some of the activities included in the pack. Each pack contains 5, 15 minute activities for your pupils to do at home - one for each day of the half term holiday - including number and word activities, reading comprehensions and maths puzzles - all with answer sheets included.

A set of 6 target sheets designed to provide coverage of the maths curriculum for Year 1 in the UK but which can be adapted to suit other curricula. Can be used at home or at school to provide a step by step approach to covering the different year group objectives. There are two complete sets provided; one has the year group printed on the top and the second set are simply numbered 1 – 6. Some educators prefer to clearly state which year group the targets are aimed at but other educators prefer to use them as a more individualised resource so that they children work at their own level and at their own pace. Structure and Organisation The targets are split into six sets for the year - one sheet per half term. This means that the average child would aim to complete one target sheet per half term which is approximately one target per week. These can be used as homework tasks or in school tasks or as a weekly challenge for home schoolers. Each child is given the first target sheet at the beginning of the year and should work through the targets one by one. These targets were not designed as an assessment tool but they can be used to track progress if so desired. Assessment and Monitoring. There are four boxes provided at the end of each target. The first is to be completed by a friend in school, the second by a parent and the third by an adult in school. Schools may choose to use all or just some of these boxes. The aim is to reduce the work load for teachers and to empower parents to know what to work on with their child next. If used in connection with websites such as www.mathszone.co.uk or www.mathisfun.com, parents can select activities to work on with their children. If groups of children are working on the same target, they can be tested together or testing can be done on a half termly basis or an individual basis.

These 36 target sheets are designed to provide coverage of the maths curriculum for Key Stages 1 and 2 in the UK but can be adapted to suit other curricula. They can be used at home or at school to provide a step by step approach to covering the different year group objectives, year by year. There are two complete sets provided; one has the year group printed on the top and the second set are simply numbered 1 – 36 with colours relating to the year group from which the targets are taken. Some educators prefer to clearly state which year group the targets are aimed at but other educators prefer to use them as a more individualised resource so that they children work at their own level and at their own pace. Some schools have found it a useful way of communicating the children’s attainment level in relation to national expectations to parents but other’s feel that this is detrimental to the child’s confidence. Structure and Organisation The targets are split into six year-groups with six sheets per year - one sheet per half term. This means that the average child would aim to complete one target sheet per half term throughout their school career; this is approximately one target per week. These can be used as homework tasks or in school tasks or as a weekly challenge for home schoolers. The colours relate to the year group from which the targets are taken • Red Year 1 • Yellow Year 2 • Blue Year 3 • Green Year 4 • Purple Year 5 • Turquoise Year 6 Each child is given the first target sheet at the beginning or year 1 and works through the targets one by one. For older children, select the target sheet with the most appropriate set of targets, and start from there. These targets were not designed as an assessment tool but they can be used to track progress if so desired. Assessment and Monitoring. There are four boxes provided at the end of each target. The first is to be completed by a friend in school, the second by a parent and the third by an adult in school. Schools may choose to use all or just some of these boxes. The aim is to reduce the work load for teachers and to empower parents to know what to work on with their child next. If used in connection with websites such as www.mathszone.co.uk or www.mathisfun.com parents can select activities to work on with their children or – for the more complex targets- they provide a good source of explanation about the mathematics involved. If groups of children are working on the same target, they can be tested together or testing can be done on a half termly basis or an individual basis.

These 20 games using the numbers and letters on car number plates are suitable for use with children from age 4 – 13, are simple and easy to play and will improve those all-important basic literacy and maths skills. Each game is unique so select the ones you think will appeal or which meet the learning needs of your child. Some require a little recording, but many do not. Some are quite challenging so you may need to have the calculator handy on your phone! The activities are graded from * to ****.

This is simply a list of websites that I put together for some friends who are home schooling their children. Hope you find them useful.

I used these little booklets with the children when preparing for our annual residential visit to PGL. It was a good way of collecting information about the children and helped with sorting out grouping and sleeping arrangements as well as letting me know what they were excited about and nervous about. It was also good evidence to support my decision making when parents were not happy about where their child had been placed!

A useful self and peer assessment grid for use with Years 5 and 6 following the writing of a persuasive argument. Hope it helps.

This is a single lesson which I taught with my Year 5/6 class using the Psalms, to develop an understanding of poetic imagery. Includes: learning objective and success criteria; lesson flow with outline activities, key learning points to be established; resources and links to You Tube. Hope it helps!

This is a simple activity to help Year 6 children know and understand how to use the semi colon correctly to join two related clauses. It is designed as a group activity to encourage peer feedback and shared understanding.

Teachers, Home Schoolers and Parents. Take the time out of planning your spelling programme. This resource gives you the spelling lists, rules and word lists needed to cover the Y3 spelling programme in the first half term. The remainder of the programme is available on TES Resources.

Take the time out of planning your spelling programme for Year 5. This resource will give you the first half term’s coverage with teaching points and differentiated word lists. Suitable for teachers, parents, home schoolers and trainee teachers. The remainder of the Year 5 Spelling Programme is available from Teaching R ainbows on TES Resources.

This is a set of maths targets for use with Year 1 children in the first half term of the academic year. Suitable for teachers, teaching assistants, parents, home schoolers and trainee teachers. Can be used at home or at school to monitor progress, for homework or as a group activity. The full set of Maths Targets for Y1 and for Years 1 - 6 is available from Teaching Rainbows on TES Resources.