Planet Unknown is a brilliant futuristic animation about a two Space Rovers, sent to find potential inhabitable planets using 'nSeed' pods to detect the possibility of growing plants. In the story, the two Rovers are undertaking their mission, but suddenly find themselves battling through an asteroid shower. This resource is two lessons; the first gets children to brainstorm descriptive language for the two characters and the setting, while the second is the writing recount of events from the film. The two objectives are as follows: 1) To describe a film setting and its characters 2) To be able to recount a film as a written story These are each supported by specific success criteria to aid children's writing. This pack includes a Smartboard presentation with detailed slides for both lessons, a planning worksheet for lesson one, and screenshots JPEGs of the characters and the setting It can easily be adapted for different KS2 year groups and a particular skill focus, e.g. tense, sentence starters, grammar or vocab. I have kept it as a general recount focus involving all skills.

I made this resource based on the 2019 Waitrose Christmas advert. It is about Edgar, a dragon who is easily excitable about things happening around him, but causes to him breathing fire, and therefore some accidents! He is friends with a young girl, his best friend, who tries to keep him out of trouble, and after one incident which causes the whole village to be angry with Edgar, she buys him a Christmas present which will bring joy to the festive dinner and make everyone happy again. I wanted to use this advert, not only because Christmas adverts continue to grow in quality and popularity, with children finding them very entertaining and engaging, but also to develop children’s description, focusing on character description in this lesson. Included is a story plan for children to note their ideas, a Powerpoint presentation for teaching the lesson, and a vocabulary sheet/ screenshots to help children to remember the plot. This can easily be adapted to develop a different Literacy skill or to suit a particular year group. Enjoy! And also see other Literacy recount lessons inspired by Christmas adverts in my TES shop!

I made this resource based on Sainsburys' 2015 Christmas advert. Judith Kerr's 'Mog The Cat' is brilliantly brought back to life in animation form. He is found having a bad dream in his family home, which caused a series of unfortunate events, ultimately causing the fire brigade to arrive! Christmas seemed like it was ruined for the family, but the village quickly came together to help and to make Christmas a happy and united occasion. My class last year loved this recount. In the first of the two lessons provided, the focus was on recounting the events from the animation, with use of adverbs to describe, but this can easily be adapted if you have a different Literacy skill that you want your class to develop! The second lesson in the pack gets children to edit and improve their writing. Look out for my other Christmas-themed Literacy resources!

I made this resource based on the 2016 John Lewis Christmas advert. It is about a dog called Buster who loves watching his young owner dream of being a professional gymnast, but then as her surprise gift is built on Christmas Eve, Buster appears becomes upset when the garden wildlife get to have a go, unbeknown to the family. The next morning, as the little girl flies out of bed and out into the garden to try her present, the family are lost for words when Buster pushes her aside to leap on to the trampoline first. I wanted to use this advert, not only because John Lewis adverts have become incredibly popular in the run up to Christmas, and therefore children find them very entertaining and engaging, but also to develop children’s description, focusing especially on verbs. Included are two differentiated story plans, a vocabulary sheet with larger screen shots from the film and a Notebook flip chart or Powerpoint presentation for teaching the lesson. This can easily be adapted to develop a different Literacy skill or to suit a particular year group. Enjoy! And also see other Literacy recount lessons inspired by John Lewis Christmas adverts in my TES shop! **UPDATED 05/11/2018 TO INCLUDE POWERPOINT VERSION OF THE LESSON PRESENTATION**

I made this resource based on the 2016 Sainsbury Christmas advert. It is about a man called Dave who is a busy Dad struggling to find time to spend with his family because of work commitments and commuting. Being a toy maker, he comes up with the idea on Christmas Eve to disguise the toys he makes to look like him, so that come Christmas Day, he could be at home with his family while work didn’t notice he was away. It’s got great graphics and a catchy song by James Corden, but most importantly the advert has a very real life, human element that many children and families can relate to. I wanted to use this advert, not only because Sainsburys Christmas adverts are now right up there in quality with John Lewis, with children finding them very entertaining and engaging, but also to develop children’s description, focusing especially on the point of view of a character. Included is a story plan for children to note their ideas and a Notebook presentation or Powerpoint for teaching the lesson. This can easily be adapted to develop a different Literacy skill or to suit a particular year group. Enjoy! And also see other Literacy recount lessons inspired by Christmas adverts in my TES shop! UPDATED 05/11/18 TO INCLUDE A POWERPOINT VERSION OF THE LESSON PRESENTATION

This amazing short film by Aidan Gibbons 'The Piano', will really tug on the heartstrings of you and your class and produce some brilliant emotive writing. Included in this pack is two Literacy lessons (planning/writing recount and edit/improve), a planning sheet for the first lesson and a worksheet to make notes using stills from the film. The writing activity takes the form of a first person recount (also easily adaptable to third person) which challenges the class to infer the main character's thoughts and feelings as he is playing the piano and recalling key memories from his life.

I made this resource based on John Lewis' 2012 Christmas advert. It is about a snowman and snowwoman who are made by some children in their garden, but overnight, the snowman disappears. He is seen making an epic journey across mountains, rivers, city centres, and eventually he returns...with the little girl finding that he had bought his snowwoman some christmas presents. I wanted to use it to develop children's inference skills and to develop their description; both of the characters and the various settings that the snowman travelled through. Each KS2 class I've taught have loved this recount. Look out for other Literacy resources I am uploading based on the other John Lewis adverts!

Nelson Boles' 'Little Boat' animation is surprisingly powerful - taking a simple boat through a range of settings which sees it become more and more damaged by human life, storms and war, but with a surprising and heartwarming ending. This Literacy lesson challenges children to image they are the boat themselves and recount it's story in the first person, describing what it can see, but also what happens to it, and its consequential feelings. Lesson pack includes writing plan for children and full lesson notebook! Enjoy!

This individual lesson teaches children how to structure lines in poetry to make them rhyme. I have linked this lesson to our Science work on the body, but this can easily be adapted to suit any cross-curricular theme or year group. Included is a whole lesson presentation, which allows you to model skills to the children and to challenge them to have a go themselves, and a worksheet for children to brainstorm their vocabulary ideas and structure before writing their poem up neatly into their books. Enjoy!

Having taught in an East London primary school, I wanted to end the class WWII topic by linking it to their own community. East London was a huge target during the Blitz, therefore was devastated during the war, which children in the area might not realise given the infrastructure around them. However, the lesson mainly compares WWII problems with modern day life in East London - positive and negative. It gets children to examine their own community, identify what is good, and what could be improved, and what they imagine it will be like in the future. The lesson activity is continuous through the lesson; making notes about what they think Hackney is like, and then develops to the children using their notes to write a poem (using my teacher example). Although this resource is focused on East London, it could be adapted to focus on area of London or the UK that was particularly affected by the Blitz. Resources include a Notebook lesson presentation, a worksheet for making notes, a presentation page for children to write their best copy of their poem and lots of picture resources.

Applicable and editable for all KS2 year groups, this is a short-burst topic on debating which can be used either during Literacy, Topic or SEAL time. There are 4/5 lessons (the first could be split over 2 days) which introduce what debating is, how debates form our UK government, example debates, and two motions for the class to discuss and debate themselves! Included in the pack is a Notebook flip for the whole week and 3 resource sheets for children to display their outcomes and self assess their understanding.

This is a fun lesson which allows children to learn and appreciate other social aspects of life during World War II. It starts by questioning children’s current understanding and enjoyment of entertainment via the radio, and informs them of its importance in the 1930s. It includes example radio clips from the war, asking children to discuss their features, and then goes on to compare those with clips from present day news broadcasting (both radio and television). The lesson objective and success criteria are as follows: Objective: To be able to write and broadcast a World War Two radio news bulletin Success Criteria: I can select key information about an event I can bias my report in favour of the Allied war effort I can use emotive language to engage the listener I can speak clearly I can use intonation and expression in my voice In my lesson I gave children facts about a particular bombing raid in London and asked them to report it as if they were a 1930s broadcaster. It was brilliant to see them dramatising their pronunciation and tone, and how they took different perspectives about the same event. I’ve left it open in the resource presentation as to what resource you would want to use for the children to complete this task. There are lots more WWII resources in my shop too if you want to link further lessons. Enjoy!

I made this resource based on the 2017 Marks and Spencer Christmas advert. It features Paddington Bear, who confuses a burglar with Santa Claus. Enthusiastic as ever, Paddington insists on helping the man with his Christmas deliveries, to the dismay of the burglar, who sees his stolen presents being taken off him. Paddington takes his new friend to observe a little girl, Alice, opening her presents, unwittingly showing the burglar the true meaning of Christmas and making him a better person. It’s got great graphics to draw in the viewer and a story arc that many children will love, having already enjoyed Paddington stories previously. I wanted to use this advert, not only because Christmas adverts continue to grow in quality and popularity, with children finding them very entertaining and engaging, but also to develop children's writing, focusing in this instant on dialogue and speech verbs. Included is a story plan for children to note their ideas and a Smart Notebook or Powerpoint presentation for teaching the lesson. This can easily be adapted to develop a different Literacy skill or to suit a particular year group. Enjoy! And also see other Literacy recount lessons inspired by Christmas adverts in my TES shop! UPDATED 05/11/2018 TO INCLUDE A POWERPOINT VERSION OF THE LESSON PRESENTATION

Oktapodi is the story of two in-love octopi who are suddenly separated (the female to be sold as food) leading to the male to endure a fast paced and exciting quest to rescue her. The objective of the writing task is: To be able to write a narrative using descriptive language Success Criteria: *I can give my narrative a beginning, middle and an end. *I can write in simple, compound and complex sentences. *I can use adjectives and similes to describe. *I can use powerful verbs and describe them using adverbs. *I can include my characters' viewpoint (how they feel). The resource pack includes a presentation for the two days of activities (day one, writing; day two; editing, improving and re-writing), a planning sheet for children to make notes on before completing their narrative.

Helping children to practise their dictionary skills in order to support their spelling, this lesson and worksheet gives a selection of purposely mis-spelt words and their dictionary definitions. Children use their dictionary to find the correct spelling. They can also challenge themselves by thinking about words they know they commonly mis-spell in their writing. Used successfully during an OFSTED inspection. Suitable for KS2.

When developing my children's comprehension skills, I don't like using photocopies from text books and meaningless expectancy sheets. I prefer to use purposeful, educational and REAL LIFE examples to engage and inform them, while still challenging them and looking for those reading skills. Therefore a lot of my comprehension challenges are based around interesting newspaper articles. In this example, taken from the Telegraph in 2013, a new species of tarantula roughly the size of a dinner plate is discovered in a Sri Lankan village. Included in this pack is a copy of the article (still available online) and linking comprehension questions suitable for KS2. Enjoy!

A simple but fun Classroom Objects-themed word search. Could be used at the beginning of a new term, to settle a class in spare time or as a spelling activity. Available in PDF format. Words featured in the puzzle are: BIN, CHAIR, DOOR, PENCIL, SCISSORS, WINDOW, TRAY, CARPET, DESK, GLUE, DISPLAY, BOOK, COMPUTER, RUBBER, SHARPENER, WHITEBOARD, PAPER, RULER, TABLE

Is your next topic about adverts, specifically TV adverts? Then here is a worksheet which involves children watching 3 different adverts and then analysing/comparing their effectiveness, use of language, use of effects and how each could be improved to draw in/entertain the reader more.

Is your current English topic focusing on persuasive texts/adverts? Here's a handy plan for children to brainstorm/note their ideas before they do their final design! It gets children to think about different vocabulary they will use, and includes LO/SC to make skill targets clear.