30 slides with brain teasers, hidden words, quiz activities.... things you may find useful for tutor period or as lesson starters to get those brains in gear. I have created some of these slides and adapted others from the net. Many of the puzzles are all time classics. On slides where the animations don't come in, answers are on the notes section at the bottom of the slide.

There is a huge amount of detailed stuff out there about this day. Here, I have put together some interactive slides mainly about the languages themselves. Should suit years 5,6,7... Hope it's useful, colleagues!

This is designed for EAL learners, but is useful as a prompt for debate in the mainstream classroom. The arguments and counter arguments are presented as exercises: match-up, replace the words and re-arrange the words. There is also a powerful image to describe - my thanks to Rich the vegansidekick for permission to use it. A full key is included.

Some memory exercises for pair work, a match-up activity and an exercise on personality adjectives. This powerpoint will hopefully be motivational at the start of the new year!

A series of famous pictures to promote higher level thinking skills: what might be happening/have happened? What might happen next? Great for EAL too - describe the pictures. Ask them to start by answering the wh- questions and then make inferences. If you play the youtube clip included first, it will show your students that they can say what they think and that there are no right or wrong answers. Well, there are thousands of great paintings and each one can provide a great starter for your lesson. The questions fly in - just incase they need a prompt!

This is an updated version of my 2016 powerpoint, which was very popular. There are lots of activities to keep them busy and get them thinking. It would be nice to get a few reviews on this one.

This is a worksheet designed to get students thinking about transgender issues, triggered by JK Rowling and her tweet.

Plastic pollution was highlighted recently in ‘The Blue Planet’. This is a reading passage with questions, a vocabulary study, prompts for discussion and they have to rearange the sentences to get advice on what you can do to help. Key included.

This is an update version of my very successful previous ones. There are lots of activities to provoke thought and plenty of visuals to promote discussion. Images fly in to assist comprehension .

I ask my students to comment on each picture and make inferences. Then they have to prepare a 5 minute talk on whether they are for or against the death penalty and why. It's still a useful debate and can be linked to &'Of Mice and Men&'; and many other works they study.

Two short anecdotes with language activities: 1) Socrates and the triple filter test. 2) The rest of your life. These could be used in PHSCE or English.

This is a 20 slide powerpoint about Veganuary. There are match-ups, gap fills, true or false activities, correct the spellings, mini RCs, research tasks (design a menu for…) and hopefully, food for thought. I have designed this for advanced EAL learners, but it will make a good form time activity. My thanks to Veganuary and Rich of vegansidekick for permission to use their visuals.

Some slides to help explain what happened in Paris, if not why. Suitable for younger students. There are some activities to ensure comprehension and hopefully promote some thinking. If there is anything inappropriate, please let me know.

The BBC is going to run this wonderful Christmas-themed clip until Christmas Eve, when apparently something wonderful will happen... (I think it will be Mum's return...). There are 20 questions here to test your students' observational skills. Full key included.

Two reading passages - this teacher's worst ever lesson and her best, with language exercises. It&'s good to let the kids know that we teachers are human too, occasionally vulnerable and also capable of doing silly things.

Does reporter Joe learn an important lesson, or does he just think about his own ambitions? There are 10 parts (this could be adapted). I've written this for my EAL students to practise the past simple tense, but it's not exclusively an EAL resource.

A short article adapted from a newspaper, with exercises and a link to the youtube clip. I used this with my EAL class and it provoked a debate about the police. Why did he do it? He just snapped: why? What should happen now? Etc...

14 slide ppt, discussing the issues at a basic level.

I have made this for my year 7 tutor group. Hopefully, this will produce some good resolutions which can be measured throughout next year.

A multiple choice quiz for students to complete. Then they make their resolutions for 2017.