The Creation story in 8 parts. One version illustrated one version plain for the children to illustrate. I intend to have the children use the illustrated copy for inspiration to create larger pieces of artwork from which I can create a display of the Creation story told through the children's paintings. The children will learn about the story of Creation in an enjoyable way and will then have a reminder up on their classroom wall.
A set of hand-drawn portraits of key people related to the Titanic disaster. 2 image sizes for ultimate flexibility. Also included is a description to go with each portrait. I like to use these to get the children to think about ‘who was to blame for the sinking of the Titanic?’. It generates lots of brilliant discussion, because all of these people could have contributed to the events. (with the exception of Dorothy Gibson, but she was later in a film about the disaster which also leads to interesting debate). It also makes for a great interactive display if you allow children to vote with lolly sticks etc and let them change their minds as they learn more about what happened.
A hand-drawn story map to be used to retell the fabulous story of Prince Cinders. I love to teach this book to year 2 and the boys especially love it. I have made a story map that can be used for whole class choral re-tellings and as a WAGOLL for children to make their own. I have also included larger versions of the images on cards that can be cut up for sequencing purposes. I like to do this on sentence strips and have the children write captions to go with them. These are great for working walls.
A few resources created to be used in a first lesson about the Titanic disaster. It includes a sorting activity the activates prior knowledge and encourages logical thinking. For example, they might not know the name of the ship’s captain in lesson one, but only one of the fact cards is just a person’s name, so they can infer that this card must go there. I like to ask the children to place the cards where they think then I go around and tell them how many are right and let them try again. Or I will move the incorrect ones but leave the ones they have right. This allows a couple of options for scaffolding. I have also included a simple newspaper cover that requires the children to write the date the ship sank at the top and to draw a picture of the boat. I display a photo of the Titanic docked for this. The text below the image also gives them a bit more information about what happened. Perfect for a year 2 lesson one!
A fun introduction activity involving maths. The children fill in the boxes to tell someone all about them, but using numbers! I have included a WAGOLL. I like to use this with year 2 but would also work with year 1 and year 3.
This is a blank postcard template that can be printed onto card. The children can then decorate the front as they like (to suit the subject), and write the postcard message and address on the back. They can even design their own stamp. This can be used for many subjects/topics across the curriculum. I have used it for KS1 seaside holidays in the past, but could also be used in Geography, Literacy, MFL etc.
This is an activity where the children demonstrate what they’ve learned about life on board an explorer’s ship, with a focus on Christopher Columbus. After discussing with the children what life would have been like and/or showing them slides etc they would draw and label the ship with all of the horrible things on board! I have provided an outline drawing of a ship, an example of what a good one would look like, and a list of labels that they can choose from to include in their drawing. My class loved doing this activity (they got to draw people being sea sick!). I have also included an extension task for early finishers. They read and complete a passage about live on board an explorer’s ship.
This is an activity based around George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl. There are 3 pages to the resource. Page one is LA, page 2 MA and page 3 HA. The idea is for the children to put the events of George’s Marvellous Medicine in order, with a link to the times of day taught in Key Stage One. This makes it a reading lesson with a Cross Curricular maths focus, or a maths lesson with a CC reading focus.
In a reading lesson it is great for the reading objective;
discussing the sequence of events in books and how items of information are related
The differentiation is that LA children have 8 cards with events and times on them to put in the right order (cards to be cut up prior to the lesson) using their knowledge of time and of the events from the story to help them. MA children are given 4 events and have to recall 4 others that fall between the given ones and write about them and draw a picture before sequencing all 8 cards. HA children are given the first and the last thing to happen in the story and must recall events from the story to fill in the other 6. Again for MA and HA the cards can be cut up in advance so they have more work to do on the sequencing side.
When I taught this I had the children work in pairs and order the cards on cardboard strips. You can prepare more of the blank cards from the HA sheet so that early finishers can add further events from the story, making sure they place them correctly in relation to what they already have on there. This way it becomes a lovely open-ended task that suits a range of abilities.
A resource pack to support children in writing an explanation text about why we shouldn't eat too much junk food. Includes a Powerpoint presentation that explains what junk food is, gives examples, and explains what we should eat instead. Also includes a word mat to support the children in writing new and unfamiliar vocabulary. Includes a differentiated key word checklist (high ability and middle ability) to act as a marking ladder for the children's writing. Lower ability activity is a cloze passage which is also included. Activities tried and tested on my Y2 children.
A fun back to school activity to help the children get to know their new class or become reacquainted with their existing one after 6 weeks off. Each child or pair has a copy of the bingo sheet (3 levels of differentiation available). Give them a time limit in which to collect as many names as possible on the sheet by finding another person who did each activity during the holidays. Can also promote discussion around children's holidays which is a great prompt for them writing a summer holiday recount, as a baseline for your writing targets for the coming weeks. You could take this activity onto the playground if the weather is dry, allowing more space for walking around to talk to each other. During the activity make sure children concentrate on beginning their classmates' names with a capital letter, and start as they mean to go on!
Set of resources that can be used over 2 or 3 lessons. The first shows a WAGOLL of what Scutari Hospital night have looked like when Florence and her nurses first arrived. This can be blown up or displayed on an interactive whiteboard for discussion purposes. Scutari-hospital.pdf then gives the children the empty template and some key word prompts to help them create their own image of what it looked like. This is great for helping the children internalise the problems at the hospital. The final resources can be used over 1 or 2 lessons depending on time. There are 3 levels of matching problems to solutions. HA - children read the problem and write down the solution from what they remember, MA - children match problems and solutions by numbering them then copy the right solution next to each problem, LA -children cut and stick solutions to match problems. They then use this information to re-draw the hospital after Florence has helped, showing all of the improvements made.
This is a story sequencing activity based on the Ladybird Tales version of the Princess and the Frog. The Ladybird tales version is told by Vera Southgate. The activity is primarily a reading lesson and is great for the Year 2 objectives;
-discussing the sequence of events in books and how items of information are related
-becoming increasingly familiar with and retelling a wider range of stories, fairy stories and traditional tales.
The story sequencing strips include text and pictures, so a great for a range of learners.
The task is differentiated by reading and by number of sequence strips. The HA task has the most reading, with the MA being a reduced version of the HA, and the LA has simplified sentences and a few of the strips removed. For each version the story is split into beginning, middle and end, with each section being on a new page, apart from the LA, where the beginning and the middle are on the same page. The strips tell the story but are jumbled up. This is to save the teacher time as the children will cut out the strips themselves. You could of course cut them out in advance but I find this to be very time consuming so once I’ve taught children how to sequence I let them cut out for themselves.
To teach this lesson I first read the book then had a short discussion with the class. I then sat the children in their reading groups and allowed them to work in pairs to sequence the events in the story. You could give them all three sheets at once or have everyone do the beginning before moving on the middle and the the end together. As an extension task for early finishers you could put some of the text into a cloze activity and see if the children can fill in missing words and/or phrases. Within the text itself I made sure to include plenty of Common Exception words as well as words which follow the spelling rules taught at Year 2. This could however also be used with Y1, perhaps leaving the HA version out.
A skeleton labelling activity which I am using with Year 2 as progression from naming body parts in Year 1. Use as part of science curriculum on human health and growth. Learning Objective: Name and find parts of the human body. Links with science ITAF for year 2, going deeper than Y1 learning about basic body parts. Children to complete activity independently after larger scale teacher input. I plan to do a 'pin the label on the skeleton' activity first, using a Halloween skeleton bought in the supermarket, with the whole class. This will then be left on display as support while children complete activity. Children could be challenged to add more labels of their own using topic books/encyclopedias for support. Files include blank skeleton template, sheet of labels (3 per sheet) and a WAGOLL. All images hand drawn. Would also be fun to do as part of 'Funnybones' topic.
This is a sequencing activity which tells the story of the gunpowder plot. Each child or pair/group receives three sheets of pictures which are in the correct order (I stapled them for ease). There are a set of explanations to go with each picture but they are jumbled up on each page. EG page one pictures go with page one words but the words are jumbled up. I gave the children one set of words at a time and they completed the 3 pages one after the other so that there weren't too overwhelmed. There are notes on the slides explaining what everything is. There are 2 levels of reading difficulty included. My Year 2 class loved doing this last year. You could always remove some steps by cutting and pasting if you wanted to simplify it further for example for year 1 children. I used as a whole class guided reading activity but it could also be done in groups or independently.
This is a science quiz which covers all of the science objectives required at year 2. I first used in during a knowledge review week in summer 2. Completed in mixed ability teams of 6, but can be set up however suits your class the best. I told the children that there would be first and second prizes, I didn't tell them until the end that first prize was for the best teamwork. During the quiz we really promoted and praised good team work that we saw. Team captain was also the scribe for the team so there was no squabbling over the pencil! I read out each question and gave teams enough time to answer them before moving on. Took one lesson to complete.
A fun craft activity all about Usain Bolt.
Print one copy of pages 2 and 3 per child.
Children colour and cut out the parts of Usain Bolt and arrange to look like he is holding the Jamaican flag. They write their own title at the top. Great for Olympic and famous people topics, to cover Key Stage One history and geography objectives. Would also cover cutting skills.
To extend you could have the children make labels to go around the picture, to show what they know about Usain Bolt To differentiate lower you could provide the labels to the children, or do a sorting true/false activity to get them thinking.
It could be adapted to suit other famous sportspeople, just print off a different country's flag.
The file is one PDF document.
The photograph shows what the resource looks like when completed and put on display.
A Powerpoint presentation and differentiated worksheets to teach children about the types of foods we should only eat occasionally because they are high in sugar or fat. Touches on the types of foods we should eat most of, but is intended to be taught as part of a whole unit of work around keeping healthy. Meets the NC objective Eat the right amount of different food types. Also includes multi-faith versions of the activity.
This is an activity to use in a SPAG lesson when reading George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl. It is great for nouns as the first part requires the children to match the objects used by George to a picture of the character they most likely belong to.
Once the warm up is complete the children will write sentences using possessive apostrophes to explain what ingredients George put into his medicine and who they belonged to. There is a ‘Must, Should, Could’ for differentiation and a LA activity is on the final sheet whereby the children simply fill in the character’s name with the apostrophe on a line within a sentence. You can then get them to copy the sentences into their books if you desire.
Example sentence the children could write;
George put Mrs Kranky’s lipstick into the pan.
The ‘Could’ also encourages children to use and to make their sentences longer.
George put Mrs Kranky’s lipstick and powder into the pan.
A story map and suggested sentences to support oral and written recounts of the Gunpowder Plot. A series of useful prompts for helping children remember the order of events in the Gunpowder Plot and to come up with sentences for them. I have had great success using this resource with both Year 1 and Year 2 children over the years.
There is one wheel per area of the Year 2 2014 science curriculum. Topics include; The Human Body, Animal Survival and Growth, Plants, Materials and Living Things and Their Habitats. Before starting a new topic children shade in each segment to reflect their prior knowledge. Includes some elements from Y1 curriculum. Statements taken/developed from the science Interim Assessment Framework (ITAF). At the end of the topic the children revisit each statement and shade in a circle next to each one to reflect their new knowledge and understanding. Lesson objectives can then be taken directly from the topic wheels to make linking back very simple. In September I complete as a whole class activity, reading out each statement in turn. By July most of the children could complete independently and it took a lot less time. Children really enjoyed looking back and reflecting on their learning in science. I followed up with an end of year science quiz which the children completed in mixed ability teams.
