I have used Pixar's brilliant 'Lifted' animation for two short-burst English/Literacy lessons - one as a general recount and the other as a first person recount from one character's point of view. The latter is the resource that I have shared, as I found it to be the most useful out of the two in my teaching practise. I requires children to infer a character's thoughts and feelings and to convert a given narrative into the first person, therefore allowing teachers to test a range of writing skills in one lesson, which the children themselves love because of the engaging resource!

Here is a lesson presentation and writing plan based on Teacher's TV 'spooky graveyard' short film. I enjoyed using this English/Literacy across all KS2 classes to develop children's descriptive writing (setting, atmosphere) in the form of a recount. This is especially good to use around Halloween time! Resource includes lesson presentation (Notebook) and planning sheet.

I made this lesson to help my class develop their variation of sentence starters. My lesson notebook models different examples using the helpful poster (which can be made into a dice) and then gets children to apply their understanding by recounting the animation of George and The Dragon (as our Literacy topic at that time was Myths and Legends). This can easily be adapted to link with a particular theme or year group.

'Hunted' is a short animation film which starts with a young, naive, native tribesman wandering into a hunter's campsite. The comedy and animation effects really draw in children and I have found it a brilliant resource to use to develop their writing description. This resource contains a full lesson and planning worksheet for the children. It focuses on developing the children's description of the setting, characters and their feelings as events progress. It can easily be adapted to challenge a different Literacy skill or to suit your class. Enjoy!

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 BBC News website in April 2017, a new species of reptile is discovered in Spain, linking to crocodiles and the dinosaurs. Included in this pack is a copy of the article and linking comprehension questions suitable for KS2. Enjoy!

This short burst English topic presents or revises different types of poetry before focusing on the topic of key Black History figures and creating nominal poems about them. The objectives covering four days are: Day 1: To compare different types of poetry * I know the purpose of poetry * I can identify the structure of different poems * I can identify use of description in different poems * I can explain how a poem makes me feel Day 2: To be able to perform poetry Success Criteria: * I can compare how authors read poetry * I can speak confidently and clearly * I can use punctuation to identify the flow of a poem * I can emphasis key words in a poem Day 3: To be able to plan the content of a poem Success Criteria: * I can research key personal information about an individual * I can find out why they became a key Black History figure * I can brainstorm adjectives that describe their personality * I can brainstorm adjectives that describe their appearance Challenge: I can predict the feelings of an individual at key points during their life Day 4: To be able to write a nominal poem Success Criteria: * I can write the first letters of the persons name down the left margin * I know the first word for each line starts with the given letter * My poem tells the reader why the person is celebrated during Black History Month * I can include descriptive language to make my poem emotive This resource pack contains the Notebook presentation for the four days, which includes examples of all types of poetry, links to poetry being performed, talk partner questions, opportunities to take notes from children's feedback and task outlines for each lesson, along with worksheets for the third and fourth lessons and linking photographs. Suitable for KS2 and great for Black History Month or a general poetry topic.

I made this resource based on the 2017 John Lewis Christmas advert. It is about a little boy who struggles to sleep at night, scared that in the dark, a monster lives under his bed. Eventually, the boy becomes friend with the monster, but it continues to affect his sleeping, leaving him tired during the day. For Christmas, he gets a special present to help him sleep well at night, content that his monster friend, Moz, will be sleeping too. It's got great graphics to draw in the viewer and a story arc that many children can relate to. 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 in this instant on character emotions. Included is a story plan for children to note their ideas and a Notebook 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! 13/11/17 - UPDATE to include a direct link to the video in the presentation

I used this lesson to revisit time connectives to improve the flow of my class' writing. The lesson itself starts with a recap of what time connectives are, why writers use them, and the brainstorming of different examples. It then moves on to challenging the children to use time connectives when recounting the events from the funny short film, 'The Black Hole', before they go on to independently complete a piece of writing - either recounting the events of the film or by writing their own story featuring a mysterious black hole.

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 BBC News website in 2013, a huge blizzard brought much of the north-eastern US and eastern Canada to a standstill, leaving about half a million homes without power. Included in this pack is a copy of the article and linking comprehension questions suitable for KS2. Enjoy!

As it is hot topic in the news at the moment, I took one of the articles about the poppy / FIFA debate from the BBC and made it into a reading comprehension exercise to give children a purposeful activity in their reading time and something that could later be discussed in PHSE/circle time. In this pack is a PDF copy of the article (which is still available online) and linked questions suitable and easily adaptable for all KS2.

I made this resource based on the 2018 Aldi Christmas advert. It is about Kevin the Carrot, who has previously featured in Aldi adverts. The advert starts as a spoof of the famous Cola Cola ‘Holidays Are Coming’ advert, until the truck hits snowfall on a mountain road and slides off the road, balancing precariously on the cliff edge, ending the advert literally on a cliffhanger. Aldi themselves ask the audience at the end of the advert to help Kevin, so I thought this would be a great opportunity for children to have a go at writing their own version of the end of the story. 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 in this activity on being able to continue the flow of a story. Included is a story plan for children to note their ideas and both a Smart Notebook and 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!

Football report made from a Bolton Wanderers v Blackpool Town game. Used as an example when studying chronological reports in KS2.

Here's a resource I've enjoyed using over and over, as it gets the kids to do most of the learning! The best way for children to understand the features of different Literacy texts is for them to explore and compare different examples. This worksheet focuses on the features of persuasive texts, which children would look out for in different examples, tick or cross whether they could spot them, and evidence by including an extract (e.g. if they have ticked that a text uses a rhetorical question, they need to note it on the sheet). This task promotes clear investigative, reading and literacy skills which could be completed independently, in partners or even together as a group!

This is one of my FAVOURITE lessons that can be taught across KS2; a short burst Literacy lesson to develop children's understanding of instruction texts using a chocolatey Easter theme! I would always bring in a few small Easter eggs to this lesson. Using one in my modelling, I would play dumb and be an alien who had never seen an Easter egg before. I would ask the children what to do with it (i.e. to open and eat it) but did everything LITERALLY as they said, to make them appreciate the detail they needed to include in their instructions. Therefore, if they said "pull open the flaps" I would pull really hard and rip the box!! This would encourage them to include adverbs, like 'carefully', in their instructions. The other Easter eggs would be on each table to help the children think through the different steps of opening and eating it, with the promise that they would be shared at lunch time of course! This again helps to bring a purpose to the skill activity and engages children into the learning. Included is a flip notebook guiding you and the children through the lesson, and differentiated planning sheets. Appropriate for all KS2 and easily adapted for your own class' needs. Enjoy!

Monkey Spoon is a hilarious animation about two monkeys who find a spoon and proceed to mess around with it. I have used this resource over and over to promote various writing skills, the most successful of which I have found to be adopting one of the character's points of view in a recount of events. Included in this resource is the whole lesson notebook and a plan for children to make notes on before writing their recount.

Going to a museum to as part of your Ancient Greeks topic? Here is a simple, print-friendly worksheet that I've used many times (at places like the British Museum) for children to pick and sketch their favourite artefact.

I made this resource based on John Lewis' 2011 Christmas advert. It is about a boy who shows his frustration of having to wait for Christmas Day throughout the video, which most children can emphasise with, until you learn at the end that he was desperate to GIVE his parents their Christmas present! I wanted to use it to develop children's inference skills and to convert the recount of an event into first person; showing their understanding of the character; with of course the description you would expect to bring the story to life. 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! UPDATE: The lesson presentation is now available in both Notebook and Powerpoint format in this download.

Carrot Crazy is a fun animation widely available on Youtube. This resource is made up of two worksheets; screenshots ordering events from the animation to guide children, and a planning sheet to help children recount the events of Carrot Crazy using lots of description.