There are lots of resources already available for expanded noun phrases, but none that really challenge children to develop their vocabulary and make really adventurous or precise choices. This dice activity encourages children to try out new word choices from extensive word banks, and it is fully differentiated into three versions. In its simplest form, children add adjectives and pairs of adjectives to noun phrases. In its most challenging form, children may have to add two compound adjectives and a preposition phrase - this can result in some wonderfully descriptive sentences. It all depends on the roll of a dice. Of course, teachers that love using my games will have guessed that already! Try it with your class and then ask them to apply the skill in their next composition. Fully editable so that you can easily adapt it to the unit you are working on by changing the single clause sentences that the children will be developing. *The main version here works well with myth, legend and adventure, but I have added a sci-fi version to show how it can be adapted for use with any fiction.

Do you want your class to learn about the language of explanation whilst also learning how to host parties and start fires in the wild? Try the dice activity ‘Cause and effect’. Assessment focus: I can use causal connectives to extend a sentence or begin a new sentence. When writing explanations, many children find it difficult to discern between conjunctions that join sentences (eg because, so) and adverbs/adverbials that begin a new, closely related sentence or at the very least follow a semi-colon (eg however, as a result of). This activity gives children lots of opportunities to use causal connectives (because, so, so that, however, consequently, this means, this will, this may, as a result of this) orally and in sentences. Most importantly, it helps them to think about whether they are extending a sentence or beginning a new one. This could be used before my other popular resource for explanation writing: ‘Explain yourself’. That activity enables children to develop a full explanation, whereas this narrows the focus to sentence skills.

I can use a hyphen to combine words and create compound adjectives. Explanation Children need to understand how hyphens can be used to avoid ambiguity (e.g. man eating shark versus man-eating shark, or recover versus re-cover). Also, an understanding of hyphens can add descriptive depth to noun phrases (e.g. the creature) when they are used to form compound adjectives (the ferocious-looking creature). In the compound adjective ‘ferocious-looking’, the hyphen shows that the two component words have a combined meaning. Aim: using the ‘dice guide’, roll to create six compound adjectives with hyphens that you could use before a noun (e.g. muddle-headed monster). Write definitions for your compound adjectives on your ‘game card’. Keep unusual or ridiculous combinations too! Have fun playing with words!

Teach modal verbs in the context of the amazing 'Guinness surfer with horses' advert (young teachers: google it). Assessment focus: I know some modal verbs, and I can explain why they are useful. I can use modal verbs statements and questions. I can use modal verbs creatively to show possibility/likelihood. In this fully resourced lesson, pupils learn about modal verbs and then use them in sentences about the doubts and worries of the surfer in the advert and the dangers he faces. There is clear differentiation for high attainer, on track learners and SEN learners. The powerpoint will guide you through. Enjoy!

I couldn't find much out there on KS2 noun phrases. Lots of stuff for KS1, but I feel it still needs pushing in KS2. On top of that, I couldn't find any decent short texts for sci-fi writing... So here is a very exciting - but also brief - sci-fi text. Children have to expand the noun phrases. There are 6 suggested ways they can expand nouns and a detailed word bank to support them. The text could also be used as a model for writing - it would be easy to play with it create something entirely new. Worked for my class.

Fully differentaited dice game! Identify and correct apostrophe catastrophes. This game is differentiated into three versions to include all learners. Apostrophes are first introduced to children in Year 2 (UK National Curriculum). By the end of Year 4, children are expected to use apostrophes accurately to show possession, omission and to mark plural possession. This game provides an opportunity to practise all three types of apostrophe use mentioned above and would also be very useful to revise the use of apostrophes in Years 5 and 6. The 'support' version of the game could be used with younger children as it just focuses on apostrophes of possession and omission. The game includes instructions on how to play (with ideas about how to finish the game), differentiated versions, and resources to support and challenge pupils. There are also 'time-saver' versions of the game cards that don't need to be cut out! ***I prefer to use the game 'landscape', and I blow the pupil recording sheets up to A3 so that they have lots of space to write. I have added a landscape version of the game.***

Word and PDF versions of everything included! In this fun ‘fronted adverbials’ game, children are journalists, working for rival newspapers. Bitter rivals! Players want to be first to the big news stories before their rival scoops them. Only the ‘First on the scene’ will get the story in their paper. The first player to finish their newspaper is the winner! Assessment focus I can use fronted adverbials to say ‘How?’ ‘When?’ ‘Where?’ events happen I know that fronted adverbials come ‘first’ in a sentence Explanation If you’ve been teaching for as long as I have (don’t ask!), you’ll have heard adverbs referred to as ‘roving reporters’. ‘Roving’ because they have more freedom to move around the sentence than other groups of words and ‘reporters’ because they often tell us more about the action and how/when/where it happens. • Slowly, he entered the room. • He slowly entered the room. • He entered the room slowly. Fronted adverbials aren’t ‘roving’ because they always open the sentence. You could think of these words and phrases as reporters (journalists), chasing big news stories and wanting to be ‘first on the scene’ to tell us more about the action as it happens. That’s why I created the game ‘First on the scene’ to encourage young writers to open sentences with adverbials.

Excellent grammar session! Fully differentiated! Including ‘support’ and ‘going deeper’ activities and a detailed PowerPoint to use in class. Available as word and PDF docs. Assessment focus I can identify nouns and verbs When I classify (group) a word, I think about the job it is doing in the sentence Explanation We spend a lot of time telling children that nouns are ‘people, places, things and ideas’ and verbs are ‘actions or states of being’. These are useful starting points for younger learners, but there is a little more it… If you ask children to classify ‘walk’, ‘laugh’, ‘object’ and ‘book’, they will likely tell you that the first two are verbs and the second two are nouns. Understandable! In fact, these words can be nouns or verbs, and there are many similar examples. Therefore, when children are classifying a word, we need to encourage them to look at the function of the word within its sentence. The walk was long and tiring. (Noun) I walk to school. (Verb) This two player dice game, aimed at upper KS2, gives pupils lots of opportunities to identify nouns and verbs. More than that, they also explore the function of words that can be used as nouns and verbs. Children have to look at the whole sentence before classifying a word. It has built in peer assessment, so there is NO MARKING REQUIRED! Pupils assess each other’s answers as the game progresses: player A has player B’s answers and vice versa. Lots of opportunities for pupil talk! It’s an engaging way to get pupils talking about the function of words and is much richer than a simple worksheet.

Updated for 2019! Young people are interested in drones, so if you are teaching argument, persuasion or discussion, make the most of their enthusiasm for these popular flying gadgets. Also, drones are always in the news and it is motivating to pick a current issue. Here are two fantastic drone themed lessons (around 150 minutes required) broken into nine activities, suitable for Key Stage 2 writers and no doubt useful for KS3 as well. All children will have opportunities to ‘talk the language of debate’ and produce a piece of writing either ‘for’ or ‘against’ drones. It’s a winner! There is also drone background information; links to videos; key argument cards; banks of useful sentence openers; modal verbs; suggestions for support/extension activities; a planning sheet; an example text and a detailed self/peer assessment sheet (or toolkit). Everything you need. The nine fully resourced activities are: 1. Get to know drones! 2. Meaning breakdown – understand tricky new words 3. Pick a side 4. ‘For’ or ‘against’? 5. Organise your debate 6. Useful sentence openers for debate and persuasion 7. Switch sides! 8. Write a persuasive letter/blog for the school website 9. Self assessment/peer assessment

Dice game! Warm up! Presentation! Missing dashes activity! I’ve probably spent too much time thinking about how to teach young writers to understand dashes and to use them creatively. The end result is a dice activity which teaches children six simple ways of using dashes effectively. Children who take part in this writing activity will learn six different (and fool proof!) ways of dropping in extra thoughts and ideas between dashes. It is surprising the depth this can add to fiction writing. *As well as the dice activity, I have also included a 15 slide PowerPoint. This explains how dashes can be used, and it has extension activities. *I have also included a warm up activity that always leads to some useful discussion. *I have also included a ‘add the missing dashes’ activity Teachers, if you swap the sentences in this activity to match your own writing projects, children can generate superb sentences to add to their own compositions.

Included in the zip folder: detailed lesson plan, presentation, four fantastic personification generators (spooky woods, old buildings - inside and outside, creepy caves and majestic mountains). You will need 1-6 dice to use the personification generators. Try them - the combinations really work! Everything is Word/PowerPoint so you can edit and adapt as you wish. This is a carefully planned, fully resourced and differentiated lesson about personification aimed at upper key stage 2 writers. I used this session to create poetry with personification, but it would work equally well with descriptive writing or story settings. The lesson is structured as follows: Warm up What is figurative language? What is personification? Can you personify your noun using one of the prompts on the screen? Shared writing 2 differentiated dice-based personification generator activities - children use these to create stunning examples of personification about spooky woods (one verse) or spooky buildings (two verse: inside/outside writing) - try it! Peer assessment There are two additional personification generators if your class are keen to do more (cave and mountains). Fully road tested - in one session the whole class had written superb personification poems (example included on the ‘woods generator’), and they really enjoyed the spooky theme. I hope your class have the same success.

Use the presentation to explore ary, ory and ery word endings. Play the fun two player game with built in self assessment - Word race: ‘ary’, ‘ery’, ‘ory’ Challenge and support activities are included. Challenge: Try the ary ory ery riddles included (‘challenge activity’). Support: Match the word cards and sentence cards and write the sentences down.

In Key Stage 2, especially from Year 4 onwards, children are expected to use a variety of conjunctions accurately. I think that ‘if’ and ‘although’ deserve as a whole session on their own because they are two of the trickier conjunctions. Children often use ‘although’ inaccurately as they do not understand it’s meaning. Included is: a warm-up activity to get children thinking right from the moment they come in; a 20 slide PowerPoint with lots of activities to engage with; a detailed lesson plan; a simple SAN/low attainers activity.

Fully resourced 3 week unit for this text also available in my store! I wrote this model text for year 3/4 children learning about the Stone Age (Bronze Age and Iron Age models are also included in your download). Important year 3/4 conjunctions, prepositions and adverbs are shown in red. The model has been written so that the children can easily use it to help them structure their own reports on the Bronze Age or the Iron Age. There is one image and it is from PIXABAY. I have also included some teacher notes about the text. If you are a talk for writing school, I have included the ‘story map’ for the first 4 paragraphs - that’s the amount we ‘talk’ off-by-heart. I have included Bronze Age and Iron Age versions of the Stone Age model. This is to show how the model can easily adapted to new subjects, and to give ideas for outcomes that the children could research and write. Finally, there are two activities related to the Iron Age version of the model that may be handy. One involves adding prepositions to information sentences. The other involves organising information in a sensible way (sub headings, captions etc).

Sweet shop lists! A fun way to generate list sentences Assessment focus I can use a comma (or ‘and’) to separate things in a list You will need: a dice guide (included), a tick chart (included), a 1-6 dice Support: Reduce the number of items on the tick list. Use a 1-3 dice and reduce the number of rows on the dice guide. Challenge: For each item in your list add an adjective to extend the noun phrase. There are some helpful words in the ‘Yum word bank’. Example: We shared our chewy fudge, sour laces and delicious lollipops.

20 quiz quiz trade cards about Saxons and vikings and instructions on how to use the cards.

Lesson plan and 3 differentiated versions of a fun game to practise spelling words ending words ending –el, -al, -le. Assessment focus I can spell words ending –el, -al, -le Explanation ‘Towel’, critical’ and ‘apple’ all have the same pronunciation at the end. So how do people know which spelling to use? Most words end –le (-al and -el endings are far less common). Also –le endings tend to follow letters with ascenders or descenders. There are no rules that work every time! –el, -al, -le game You will need: a 1-6 dice per pair, a word bank per pair, a recording sheet each

Assessment focus: I can write a sentence that makes sense by itself Children explore sentences that make sense and sentences that do not. They fix sentences and write them correctly. The main activity is differentiated 3 ways. Included: Lesson plan Warm up Activity differentiated 3 ways

KS2 poetry with patterns - 4 lessons - fully resourced. I love using ‘Amulet’ by the amazing Ted Hughes as a model for children’s poetry writing. Here are four sessions that explore this rich and powerful poem in creative ways. By the end of session 4, children will have created powerful poems of their own. Objectives covered: Part 1 Understanding a poem I can discuss a poem in a group, listen carefully to others and build on my own ideas. I can explore the meaning of tricky words and phrases. I can infer what the poet may have been thinking. Part 2 Reciting a poem I can read using intonation to add meaning I can visualise a poem I can recite a poem from memory Part 3 Exploring nouns and noun phrases and gathering ideas I understand the terms noun and noun phrase I can use precise nouns and rich descriptive language Part 4 Creating poems of our own I can create a magical poem with patterns Your class will love creating poems in the style of Ted Hughes!