I’ve never quite settled on a handwriting scaffold, as the lines often don’t seem to translate across to writing on normal lined paper lines- so I’ve made my own!
I created these lines that aim to help the spacing of ascenders and descenders and lead on to writing on normal exercise book lines. They’re in 3 different sizes: small lines (8mm), medium lines (16mm) and large lines (32mm) so that children can work through at their own pace.
Handwriting packs
To help support children’s handwriting skills, I’ve made packs of words for children to use. Each pack is available with the handwriting scaffold and also without.
First 100 HFW (medium lines) Next 200 HFW (medium lines) Year 3/4 exception words (small lines) Year 5/6 exception words (small lines)
Support resources – Formation guide – Display resources – Exercise flip-up guide to stick in front cover of book (or attach to tables) – Line skill warm ups – Pack organised by letter, join and word (e.g. letter featuring a straight line, or starting with a curve) – Letter formation gifs
Joined handwriting font
I’ve made a joined handwriting font called Artemis which is available in the link at the top of the page if you’d like it! It may not be suitable for all children or all texts, so please do check before you use it. *Please make sure you read the instructions below*
If you download the font, you will need to enable ligatures to make the joins work. To do this, press ctrl + d, select ‘Advanced’ and then make sure the circled options are enabled.
A set of reading comprehensions (complete with answers) on a range of topics and in a range of different text types. There are a variety of question types with short answers, tick boxes, sorting, ordering and copying from the text. I’ve tried to use wording similar to the recent KS2 SATs tests in order to use as practice!
Spelling activities for all aspects of the KS1, LKS2 and UKS2 curriculum, all with answers! It also now comes with some editing activities and 14 spelling tests matching the rules. Currently over 100 pages of activities. https://www.dropbox.com/s/nl4uj0b23xxn604/Spelling%20pack.pdf?dl=0
Dragon pack
*Description word bank *Activity sheets * Dragon information text * How to hatch a dragon instructions *Dragon non-chronological text * Example dragon description
I love using this game as a quick group or whole class activity, and it’s always so interesting to see the ways that children quickly try to remember spelling patterns (e.g. ‘diff-e-rent’ not ‘diff-rent’). Here you can find sets for all the HFWs, KS1, LKS2 and UKS2 spellings and commonly misspelled words.
Edit: I’ve also now made Tray Trouble mats for most of the phonemes to help develop a sense of how sound links to spelling.
I absolutely love writing. I did a degree in English Language and I really enjoy writing creatively, particularly poems! Since being in UKS2, I have become much more aware of the technical aspect of writing and how different texts are created. This led me to creating these packs of WAGOLLS for different writing genres, with suggestions for how to use them in class. If you use and like my resources, please consider buying a book for my school- it would be much appreciated! Link can be found here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/1SHNC70FLSPI8?ref_=wl_share
Here you can find the different genre packs, and below you can find some suggestions for how they can be used! I will update the list as I finish each pack.
For each text, I have created at least one example text. With each one, I have included a blank copy of the text and two annotated copies. The first one includes the specific text features for that text, e.g. the layout features. The second copy is annotated with the grammatical techniques taught in KS2, including the Y3/4 and Y5/6 spelling rules and exception words that could be used in the piece.
Text genre guides
I have also made these text genre guides which have an example text map, a list of the different features and some suggestions for how to incorporate the grammatical skills taught in KS2. It’s important to note that children are not expected to include every single skill in each piece, but hopefully these guides will give some examples of how they COULD be included.
Vocabulary guides
These guides should give some examples of the different vocabulary used in each text type to help children to structure their writing and use a range of different phrases accurately to ensure a wide range in their work.
Table guides
I’ve also included these table guides for children to use. It may be that in a geography lesson you want children to write a persuasive letter, but they need a reminder of appropriate language. In that case, you can print out these table guides and add in topic-specific vocabulary to provide support during the writing.
I hope that these are useful! If you use them, I would love to hear how they go! If you find any mistakes, please let me know and I can edit them.
I’ve put together a set of posters which I have in my classroom to help children when they’re describing characters. The aim of these is to help children to build pictures of their characters through vocabulary choice, e.g. instead of ‘went’ or ‘walked’, using a word that shows how the character may be feeling. Many of the words here could fit into different sections, and you may disagree with some of them, but hopefully some of them will be useful to you! I’d love to hear your thoughts on them and how you might use them. I’ve also added a little section at the top to explain that emotions won’t always look the same in different people.
I’ve also been looking at using spelling challenges to help to deepen understanding around the spelling rules and to be able to explain their learning. To do that, I’ve used the challenge cards that I created for reading comprehension and altered the instruction slightly for each one. Here are the symbols and their meanings:
Each of the sets of spelling challenges links to one of the spelling posters that I’ve made, meaning that they can be used for prompts. Here are some examples of spelling challenges for the year 3 and 4 spelling rules:
And here are the some spelling challenges for the year 5 and 6 rules!
I hope something here will be useful to you! I’d love to hear how you might use the challenges and what you think of them.
Off the back of my post a few days ago, I’ve made some more spelling posters. This time, I’ve made the year 3/4 spelling rules and a few other common ones, such as plurals. I would use these when introducing a new spelling rule in a spelling lesson as they give clear examples of when the rule applies. I also always make sure to say that there are many exceptions to the rules, but these are the best guesses!
As always, I’d love to hear what you think and how you might use them. Hope they’re useful!
Another thing that I’m also working on is a set of challenges for each spelling rule, which can be used in a spelling lesson. Each of these relate to the spelling poster for the same rule, so there is a prompt for solving the challenge. The aim for this is for children to really understand the rule, not just have a surface understanding. Also, as the questions are based on the posters, they are improving their reading comprehension!
It’s no secret in my school (or, in fact, at home!) that I am shamelessly a grammar geek. I did a degree in English Language and have a shelf full of etymology/ grammar/ language study books, including probably every one ever written by David Crystal. I love how there are clear rules (albeit with some exceptions) which you can apply to writing. I definitely feel that having a good knowledge of grammar is a fantastic skill to have and, personally, have found that children with a strong grammatical knowledge tend be good writers as they know the rules and then how to bend them for effect.
Displaying the tenses Firstly, I always have this on display in my room, so that it can be referred to.
There are two benefits for this. Firstly, being year 6, it is useful for the SPAG test where they need to be able to name the tenses. Secondly, it is useful for being able to discuss pieces of writing and how meaning is changed through tense. This is particularly relevant when writing something like a diary entry where a character may be referring to event that have recently happened, are currently happening, or even haven’t yet happened. Although others may disagree, I find that if children have a good understanding of the different tenses, they are more able to select the correct tense and discus why they have chosen it.
Teaching the tenses explicitly In order to use different tenses effectively, it is important to understand the difference in meanings. Here is an example for teaching the past perfect tense:
I have made two different versions, as some people may prefer to have a less cluttered version, or may like to have one for display and one to refer to one tables.
Past simple suggests something that started and finished in the past tense.
Present perfect is used for things that started in the past
and are still true now OR have an effect on what is happening now.
e.g. ‘Tom lived in Bristol for 10 years’ suggests that he doesn’t live there anymore. ‘Tom has lived in Bristol for 10 years’ suggests that he still lives there.
‘We were friends for 5 years’ suggests that they aren’t friends anymore. ‘We have been friends for 5 years’ suggests that they are still friends
Teaching points:
Show the above pair of sentences (Tom lived in Bristol for 10 years. Tom has
lived in Bristol for 10 years.)
How are the two sentences different? What do they suggest?
Teach the tenses in context Teach how the tenses are different, how they link and which is better in different situations. I made this example to show how the tenses can be used to show different shades of meaning.
Here is an example of the kaboom set I made for tenses. I have these in a pot with the guide (top picture) stuck onto the side so that the child asking the question has the answers and to give a tip if the child answering is stuck.
Reinforce regularly: One thing that I always pick up when children are speaking is when they say things like ‘I seen’ or ‘I done’. I always feel that I’m not having consistently high expectations if I let them speak incorrectly and it’s now becoming more frequent that the children are noticing their own verbal mistakes and self-correcting them. Quite often, these mistakes are from not fully understanding how different tenses work, so I made these posters to help!
I also like to display pairs of sentences and ask children to see if they can find the differences in meaning between the two.
To regularly reinforce knowledge of the tenses, I’ll sometimes display this and ask children to rewrite the sentence in each different tense. To support less confident children, I’ll use the handy tense cheat sheet.
Hopefully there’s something here that’s useful for you. I’d love to hear what you think!
English is a funny language! There are so many exceptions to all the rules that spelling is often a minefield, especially for those who find spelling a little more challenging. In this blog post, I thought I’d share some spelling rule posters that I’ve made for the year 5 and 6 spelling rules. I have them on display in my room to be constantly referred to and the way that they have been broken down makes it easy to be used by children as well as adults. Important note: I always make it clear that while these rules apply to MOST words, there are exceptions that just don’t fit.
Hope they’re useful! I’d love to hear what you think of them 🙂 Let me know if there are any spelling rule posters you’d like me to add!
I’ve put together a set of puzzle piece cards to help children to ‘build’ words and help them to get an better understanding of prefixes and suffixes. The main reason for this is that many children make the same mistakes of trying to sound words out phonetically rather than breaking the words down. Two examples that come to mind are spelling disappeared as ‘dissapeared’ and words that come up in spelling tests, such as spelling ‘disobeyed as ‘disobaide’.
Below, you can find some examples of the prefix and suffix puzzle pieces and blank copies too. What I’ve personally done is to laminate them so that I can cross out ‘e’, etc. at the end of the word if it is dropped. I’ve done a few examples of root words, but I tend to just have a blank laminated version that I write on in whiteboard pen when needed.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I will keep adding to it! Hopefully, it’ll be a useful resource to you. Please let me know if you’d like me to add in any prefixes or suffixes.
This year, I have experimenting with mixed ability seating and differentiation in order to ensure that all children have the opportunity to achieve highly and that none are being restricted by an activity that has been given to them. In every lesson, they will have a choice of three different scaffolded versions of the same set of questions/ piece of writing so that they are all able to access the same work. This means that it is not super obvious in the classroom who is the highest or lowest ability, and no child is left feeling demoralised that they have been given ‘easier’ work than another child. When I first started teaching this way, I really struggled with working out the logistics of what the classroom would look like; however, I’ve now found some ways that works for me and my class.
These are just some ideas for how to use mixed ability grouping, but hopefully there will be something useful for you!
https://mrsfclassroom.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/scaffolding-inference-in-reading-comprehension/ ) which enables all children, including those working at a much lower level, to access the same words and challenges but in a way that they can be successful. Every child chooses their work level based on how confident they feel and whether they are ready for a challenge. There are always a few children that I monitor, as they have a tendency to choose the easier option even though they are confident with the task! I will often work with a small group for the first few questions (by calling over certain children who were not confident during the input) and then later work with some more confident children to move them on to challenges.
Maths
This year, I’ve used the Kagan seating method to seat my children in mixed ability places in maths which has been good as it means that children are sat in pairs where one is fairly confident and can offer some guidance to the other. Throughout the input, I check in on certain children and get an idea for those who might need more support. When it then comes to setting the activity, I have three versions of the same questions: one with no scaffolding, one with some scaffolding and third heavily scaffolded. I explain the differences between the three choices and then the children come to collect their choice. They self-mark their work and come to see me if they can’t see where they have gone wrong in a question. As they choose their activity, I will then call over a few children to work with (either those who didn’t quite understand or who need a challenge) and then send them back to their tables once they are feeling confident. As an extra layer, I also have maths concept books (https://mrsfclassroom.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/maths-concept-books/) with the steps to success and a times table grid to support them in their work if needed, as well as having other resources available.
Once they have finished their main activity, I have three boxes of challenges, labelled mild, spicy and hot. Mild has challenges for those children who are fairly confident with the method but need a little more consolidation, spicy has challenges for those who are confident and hot has challenges which are fairly hard and will be challenging. Having used this system for a few months, they are now able to choose the level they need to be working at, and know when it is appropriate to choose an easier or a harder task.
Writing
In writing, I tend to mix around the seating every week, or
sometimes more often. I try to have a different combination of children at my
table every week so that I can provide more tailored support during that time;
however, I will also go round to see every child during the course of the
lesson to discuss their writing and give feedback.
Quite often in writing, we give children sentence structure strips with different levels of scaffolding (something that I’m going to do another blog entry on soon!) which helps them to structure their work. These are also chosen by the children based on their confidence level with writing. I will often do a piece of guided writing with the children that I have called to my table, or at least guide the first few lines before moving to independent or supported work. All children are also free to choose any of the resources in my classroom at any time, meaning that they can support themselves.
Hopefully there’s been something useful for you here. I would love to hear what you think! 🙂
Mrs F's Classroom 