This is a fun and active way to get students thinking carefully about the difference between facts and opinions as part of your non-fiction texts topic. This resource contains animal and space themed task cards which the students need to sort into facts and opinions. There are two activities we enjoy using the cards for. Activity 1: Put students into teams of 4 or 5. In an open space, designate an area for facts and an area for opinions. Give each team a pack of cards and make them stand a good distance away from the designated fact / opinion areas (15 meters works nicely). Each team must take the top card and decide whether it’s a fact or opinion. Then one player must run and place the card in the correct zone before running back to their team. Once they’re back at their team they can discuss the next card and the next player can run to put it in the correct zone. Do this until all of the cards are in the correct zones. Activity 2: Designate an area for facts and an area for opinions (two sides of a playground work well). As you read out the task cards the students must decide whether it’s a fact or opinion and run to the correct area. If you want to turn this into a game, the last student to the correct zone is out. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also, be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

All about adjectives is an activity where students will find something they find interesting outside, draw it, and think of some adjectives to describe it using all of their five senses. This pack contains differentiated sheets as well as word banks to support those who need the extra help. It can be a great starter activity, plenary, or even whole lesson depending on the age of your students and their abilities. It’s important students have a basic understand as to what an adjective is before starting this activity. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also, be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

Exploring the outdoors and rhyming go together perfectly. Your class will learn about word structures and rhyming while talking part in this fun physical activity. This activity will work best if you can give an input or lesson before taking the class outside. Once outside, each student / pair will find an object and write it in the first column of their table, for example, a tree. They’ll then go around and see if they can find another one or two things that rhyme with their original object. They can the repeat this until they’ve had a chance to find a few rhymes. This activity can be made more competitive by assigning rhymes points. Extension: Once they’ve got a good amount of rhymes they can use them to create their own poems using our templates provided. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also, be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

Imagine if insects had a social media platform… well now they do! Your class will think like an insect and create a ‘bugbook’ page for their chosen insect. This is a great cross-curricular activity that will firstly get students looking at the features, habitats, and characteristics of insects in their outdoor space as well as practicing their non-fiction writing and research skills. It’s great when looking at description writing and non-fiction texts. You can also use this as a base to talk about internet safety using the question prompts provided. PSHE, science, and literacy all in one! Teaching Structure: Explain to your students that insects are getting social and love the new bugbook social media site. It’s their job to observe and research a chosen insect and make a bugbook profile for it. Share the example with them as a starting point to showcase the kind of things they may include. Get students to head outside, choose an insect they’d like to create a profile for and spend some time observing it, filling in as much of the research sheet as possible. They can then compete the sheet using the internet to research. Once the research sheet is complete they can create the insect’s profile using the templates provided. **Internet Safety: **Once they’ve completed their profiles, you can use the 10 internet safety question prompts to have a discussion with your class about the importance of being safe online. This could be done in small groups where each station is a different point outdoors. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also, be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

This outdoor poetry activity gets students writing a simple poem about your outdoor space using their senses. Teaching Structure: Take the students into an outdoor space. Get them to sit quietly and think about what thy can see, hear, smell, touch, and feel. Once they’ve had time to think get them to write a poem by completing the differentiated poem templates. Along with the differentiated sheets, encourage students to use language in their poems appropriate to their ability. Once they’ve written their poems it is nice to share them together as a class. They can also make a great display! Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

This activity is designed to get students thinking about instruction writing while appreciating the world around them. It can easily be adapted to suite a wide age and ability range. Ages 4 – 6 Get students to go into your outdoor space / woodland area and draw something they really like about the area on ‘my favorite thing’ sheet (animals, plants, sky, etc.). Come back together as a group and discuss what they have chosen as their favorite thing. Explain to the students that you are going to use all of their favorite things to create a recipe for a woodland. This can be done together verbally or by writing a recipe on the board. Ages 7 – 9 Get students to go into your outdoor space / woodland area and draw / list all the things they like about the space on the ‘my favorite things’ sheet. Once you’re back in the classroom (or an appropriate space outside), explain that they’re going to write a recipe for their perfect woodland, using all the things they thought about while outside. At this point it’s good to show the students a variety of other recipes, getting them to highlight the key features. Once they are familiar with the key features, they can begin to write their recipe for the perfect woodland, using our prompt sheets to help if needed. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

This activity is all about students exploring different textures in the world around them. Don’t be afraid for students to get muddy for this activity! Explain to your class what the word ‘texture’ means and that they will be exploring all sorts of different textures in your outdoor space. Give them the table and go through each texture, giving them a chance to check they know the meaning of each one. Once they are ready, wearing clothes that can get a bit wet and muddy, get them to go outside and try to find each of the textures in the table, drawing or writing down their findings. Diff. 1 – Textures are already filled in on the table. Diff. 2 – To give students more of a challenge, they can fill in different textures they can think of before heading outside. For students who need more support, this activity can be done in small groups with adult support. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

This activity gets students listening to the sounds of nature as well as creating their own sounds as they explore the world of onomatopoeias before creating their own onomatopoeia poetry. First, talk to the students about what an onomatopoeia is, sharing some examples of onomatopoeia poetry. Get them to highlight the onomatopoeias in the example poem. Students can illustrate this poem as a filler activity. Next, get students to go outside to listen to what noises they can hear in nature. Encourage them to create their own noises (hitting rocks together, stamping through leaves, etc.). While they’re outside they can complete the ‘Sound Hunt’ sheet, creating some onomatopoeia art. Once they have their list of onomatopoeias they can create their own poems, using the example to help them. This activity works great both individually and as pairs. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also, be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

This activity gets students to use their imagination to change things they can find outside into weird and wonderful characters. It can be used really effectively when designing characters before writing a story, encouraging them to think about adjectives and character descriptions. Each student will choose a small natural item and place it in the first column of the table. Encourage them to spend some time looking at all the small details - it’s great if they can use a magnifying glass when doing this. Next, they will re-create their item in the middle column. This could be done through a variety of ways (pencil drawing, coloring, chalk, etc.). Finally they’ll use their imaginations to bring their item to life. Drawing their new character in the right hand column. There is a challenge sheet included with space to think of some adjectives to describe their character. Please don’t forget to rate resource to let us know what you think. Also be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

This activity gets students to use their imagination to change things they can find outside into weird and wonderful creations. It can be used really effectively when designing and describing characters before writing a story. Each student will choose a small natural item and place it in the first column of the table. Encourage them to spend some time looking at all the small details - it is great if they can use a magnifying glass when doing this. Next, they will re-create their item in the middle column. This could be done through a variety of ways (pencil drawing, coloring, chalk, etc.). After that they will use their imaginations to bring their item to life by drawing their new character in the next column. Finally they will describe their character by thinking of adjectives, a descriptive sentence, or similes and metaphors to describe their creation. It can be good to encourage the use of similes and metaphors here. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also, be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

Get creative by creating characters using only natural materials that can be found in your outdoor space. For this activity students will create characters using leaves, sticks, stones and anything else they can find in your outdoor space. The story ‘Stick Man’ fits in really nicely with this activity and can be good to read before letting the students create their own characters. Once you’ve given students time to create their own characters it can be nice to go around and share their creations, getting them to explain a bit about their creations. You can take this activity even further by taking a photo of their character and sticking it on the sheet (quarter page) or getting them to stick their character directly onto the sheet (doesn’t work so well if sticks and stones are used!) and then getting them to write some adjectives or sentences to describe their character around the outside. This activity can make a great display! More ideas… Once they’ve created their characters you can also get a learning assistant to interview them about their characters. Where do they live? What do they like doing? What are they scared of? Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also, be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

End the year with this fun Christmas literacy challenge! This pack contains 10 cards that you can hide around your outside space each with a fun Christmas themed challenge covering a wide range of topics for the students to complete on the answer sheet provided. This activity is a great fun and practical lesson to do at the end of the year. **Topics covered: ** Acting Descriptions Adjectives Instructions Metaphors Rhyming Similes Spelling This resource requires minimal preparation, however a couple of the cards require some resources to go with them. Card 4 - This needs to be somewhere where children can write using chalk. Card 8 - Optional: Write the letters on this card on small stones so that children can physically move them around. Equipment needed: Task cards + Answer Sheet Chalk - Lettered stones (optional) Blindfold Check out our outdoor Advent Calendar here. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also be sure to visit my store Saving The Teachers and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

Get outside everyday for a month with this fun outdoor activity calendar. This resource contains 30 different easy activity ideas to do outside. It’s a fantastic way to encourage outdoor learning that both you and your children are sure to love. It contains activities covering many different topics from science to art. Enjoy your month outdoors! Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

For this activity your class are on a mission to save the weeds. They will adopt a weed and spend some time studying it carefully and thinking about all the good things about their weed. They will then write a letter to the caretaker or gardener persuading them to spare their weed from being poisoned or removed. This activity is great if you’re looking at persuasive writing, however it also has good links to plants and habitats as your class will research the benefits that their chosen plant has on local wildlife. Teaching structure: Instructions: Share the instructions with your class. Weed ID: Get your class to find a weed to adopt and complete an ID sheet for it. Research: Students will research their weed (internet, books, and observation), finding out how it can benefit the local wildlife. Persuasive writing plan: Students will begin to plan their letter. Letter template: Students can use a template to help them structure their letter if needed. Resources needed: Activity pack Internet access / books Magnifying glasses Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

This is a fun and creative activity for teaching the difference between verbs and adverbs where students will give instructions to act both a verb and adverb. In a large open space (ideally outdoors) give one student out of the group / class the activity sheet and get them to read out a verb followed by an adjective (they don’t have to be from the same row). The rest of the students must act out what has been said, for example, run slowly. Once they’ve played the game you can then give them a blank activity sheet for them to create their own game tables. This pack contains two levels of differentiation, one with a word bank and one without. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

This is a fantastic activity to get your students exploring the smells of nature while thinking about adjectives. Give each student or pair a tub to take outside. Get them to collect and crush (using a stone or hands) flowers and leaves and put them in the tub to make their very own scent tubs. Once they’ve made their scent tubs, get them to complete the activity sheet where they’ll draw whats in their tub and write adjectives around the outside to describe what they can see and smell. This resource contains two activity sheets, one with a word bank and one without. ** Equipment needed:** Tubs Activity sheets Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

This activity gets students walking around your outdoor space putting themselves in the shoes of a chosen animal. They’ll think about what that animal might be able to see, hear and feel. It’s a great introduction to diary writing that can be used as a stand alone activity or the lead up to a big write. It also links in nicely with your habitats topic. Teaching Structure: Explain to the students that they are going to go outside and find an animal. It could be anything from a tiny insect to a big bird. Tell them that they’re going to imagine they are their chosen animal and think about what that animal might see, hear, and feel. At this point it could be useful to choose one animal to go through together. Get them to go off and complete the differentiated sheets. After 15 - 20 minutes get them to come back and share what they’ve done with each other. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also, be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

Get muddy with this fun activity where your class will create their very own mud creatures to be used as inspiration for a character in a story. Explain to your class that they will be writing a story (you may want to give them a theme or let them have free rein) but first they are going to create one of the main characters using only mud and natural materials. This activity is best done after rain, but if not, just add a splash of water and your mud is ready to get creative. Teaching structure: Create the creatures. Complete the character description sheet. Plan and write the story with their new character. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also be sure to visit my store Saving The Teachers and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

Get muddy with this fun activity where your class will create their very own mud creatures. Explain to your class that they will be creating a character using mud and other natural materials. You can either let them create whatever they like or get them to create a character from a book they’ve recently read. Once they’ve created their character they’ll either take a picture or draw it on the sheets and complete the blanks to describe their character. Extension: Get them to draw or tell a story involving the character they created. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think. Also, be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!

This is a fun activity to experiment with measuring and units of measure. Children will find objects to measure in your outdoor space, however instead of using standard units of measure, they’ll create their own wonderful units of measure, for example, leaves. If they chose leaves as their units of measurement they’d use a leaf to measure the item and record their answers in the table. As an extension students can convert their ‘weird units’ to cm. Please don’t forget to rate this resource to let us know what you think Also be sure to visit my store and FOLLOW ME to see my new products and hear about upcoming sales!