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.

As part of the children's cross-curricular studies about the Black Death, I linked my Art by learning about Masks. The class had previously studied the Egyptians, so this linked well with their knowledge from that. This is a simple presentation which will allow you as a class to discuss what masks are, who wears them and why, and to compare different examples from cultures around the world. I haven't included a specific activity, but from this we went on compare/contrast the examples, and then over future lessons focus specifically on Death Masks before the class designed and made their own. Can easily be adapted for a different topic which features masks!

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.

Pigeon Impossible is a hilarious animation easily available on YouTube. It is about a detective, Walter, who, despite his top-level job, becomes amusingly thwarted by a....pigeon! Children love describing Walter, especially his traits which lack expected 'detective-qualities', and the mischievous pigeon, who only has an eye on getting one thing. This pack includes a full lesson presentation and planning worksheet. It can easily be adapted for different year groups and a particular Literacy focus, e.g. tense, person, grammar or vocab.

This lesson introduces children to Limerick poetry and gets them to try writing one of their own. I used this as a one-off lesson, but could easily be extended across one or multiple weeks. I made a cross-curricular link with our class topic, water, and again, this resource could easily be adapted to suit your topic or year group. Also included is a planning worksheet for your class to brainstorm their ideas before writing their poem neatly either on the sheet provided or independently in their books. Enjoy!

Lesson presentation introducing acrostic poetry. Can be used as a theme opening lesson or as a stand-alone lesson. I made a cross-curricular link with our 'pirates' topic theme, but this can be easily adapted to suit a particular class theme or year group. Also included in this pack is a worksheet for your class to brainstorm their vocabulary ideas and practise writing their poem before writing it up neatly into their books. Enjoy!

This worksheet allows children to thoroughly plan and design their own product that uses magnets, following this success criteria: I can list some ways in which magnets are used at home and school I can suggest other ways in which magnets could be used I can present ideas using labelled diagrams/notes This lesson would ideally be used after learning about forces and magnets, allowing children to creatively demonstrate and extended their understanding, cross-curricular with DT.

This lesson explains to children the importance of women during WWII - how they kept the country running while men were away fighting, taking on jobs in industries that women previously did not work in and therefore changing their role and status in society. The notebook presentation explores how women's roles changed, their pay and what that would compare to today, and how the government used posters to encourage women into industrial work in factories and on farms. The lesson activity is in three parts: 1) studying the posters and annotating observations towards use of colour, illustrations and text 2) Answering questions based on class discussion about women's role during WWII 3) Using the internet to explore given articles about women in WWII, understanding how it is still celebrated today

This resource is part of a whole half term of engaging lessons which I have used from years 3-5 to teach the topic Humans including Animals. This lesson focuses on the human skeleton, and includes questions to stimulate children's ideas, links to online video clips to help develop and engage children's understanding, and suggested lesson activities. The objective and success criteria are: LI: To understand the human skeleton Success Criteria I know what the human skeleton is made out of I can explain why humans have a skeleton I can label different parts of the human skeleton

This resource is useful to use either at the start of a new term or in the middle of the academic year, to allow children to demonstrate what they believe to be their own personal academic achievements so far, and their targets. It is presented using comic-book style speech bubbles to make it engaging. The top bubble is entitled: 'What I've Done Well So Far This Year' and the bottom: 'What I Would Like More Help With...' I have used these in every year of my teaching, as it gives children the opportunity to demonstrate their pride, their aspirations, and the wording of 'help' rather than 'target' correctly implies that support will be given, rather than a goal being an independent task (and therefore to many, very difficult to achieve). The resource is available in Pages, Microsoft Word and PDF format and in black and white for ease of printing and gives the children the opportunity to decorate if time allows! Enjoy!

A simple but fun Chinese New Year-themed word search and crossword puzzles to help children to embed their knowledge of the festival. Available in PDF format. Words featured in both puzzles are: DOG, DRAGON, FESTIVAL, GOAT, HORSE, LANTERN, LUNAR, MONKEY, PIG, RABBIT, RAT, ROOSTER, SNAKE, SPRING, TIGER

This lesson uses brainstorming, questioning, exploration and matching to follow the objective: To understand the different parts of plants The Success Criteria is as follows: I can name the main parts of a plant I can label the main parts of a plant I can describe the functions of plant parts Included is a page listing different accessible and engaging activity ideas (as the items I used are copyrighted). This lesson links with others in my resource shop, as a topic bundle about Plants.

This lesson uses brainstorming, questioning, exploration and matching to challenge the objective: To understand how the soil helps plants to grow The Success Criteria is: I know the function of plant roots I know why soil is a good place for plants to grow I can describe the nutrients found in soils Included is extensive flip pages helping children to understand the photosynthesis process and lesson activities to display their understanding. This lesson links with others in my resource shop, as a whole topic bundle about Plants.