Contextual Resources

A light-hearted poem to celebrate International Pi Day and British Pie Week.  Pi Day is celebrated on 14th March every year (3.14) and British Pie Week is usually during the first full week of March.

In English classes this poem could be used as a discussion starter on the theme of food likes and dislikes, vegetarianism and diet.

In Maths classes it could be used as a humorous introduction to Pi.

Editor's notes

Love this  :) 

An ESOL lesson embedding numeracy, diversity and British values, centred on the Spring Equinox and three festivals which happen around / on this day - Purim, Holi and Shunbun No Hi. Learners collect unfamiliar words on a vocabulary sheet and ask and answer questions to elicit meaning / explanation. There is a powerpoint to introduce the topic, using acronyms eg 7DIAW  - Seven Days In A Week to elicit key words, and lead to an explanation of what the Vernal Equinox is and when it is.

My class of adult learners were struggling to associate fractions with real world scenarios so I created this worksheet based on honest situations.
The questions are diverse in difficulty from Entry level 2 to Level 2 making it a good worksheet as a starter or revision.
Editor’s note
With curriculum mapping and answers

A reading comprehension activity, based on an extract from a Guardian article on the value of smart meters. Questions cover the following skills: reading for gist, skimming, scanning, identifying the use of a pronoun, vocabulary matching and inferring. Suitable for Entry 3 – Level 1. Could also be used as a starter activity at Level 2, prior to using the full text of the article for other activities.

A two sided A4 sheet that builds on the identification of verbs and the spelling rules for past tense verbs. This is followed by a simple knowledge check.

It is designed to be used as a whole group lesson starter. It is differentiated in the sense that more able learners will be expected to complete the more complex tasks.

Editor’s note
The vocabulary in the example sentences is aimed at Painting & Decorating students, but the resource is suitable for all.

Three sets of dominoes to use in warm-up and for letter and word recognition activities. The first set, for pre-Entry ESOL and Literacy learners with very low levels of letter and word recognition, matches lower case to capital letter versions, the second set is a set of “doubles”, which can be used alongside the first. The third set, for pre-Entry / Entry 1 ESOL learners, matches a category to an example. Each set has 17 dominoes, so 4 each for a group of 4 learners, plus one to start.

Based on an infographic from the I Newspaper at https://twitter.com/iNewsGraphics/status/752825714920095744
this makes an ideal starter activity and discussion prompt with the infographic displayed on a large screen.
Can also be used as a traditional paper based worksheet, aimed at E1-E3 Functional Maths learners – questions cover graphs & charts, number, shapes and position.

A short set of questions based on a pictorial map of The Mall and surrounding area for the Patron’s Lunch event held on June 12 2016. Would make a good starter activity especially if the map was displayed on a large screen or interactive whiteboard (link is provided in addition to an image in the PDF).
Focuses on interpreting map keys; shape, space & position, and basic number.
With curriculum mapping and answers.
Postscript

This is a great session starter. Students will work on their sentence construction and vocabulary with a card game that allows them to experiment with word order and effective word choice. Students have to put the words into a sensible order, even if the subject of their film is far from sensible.

In this game, students compete to make the scariest film title, or to sabotage other people’s film titles. It is a light hearted and fun game. The film titles created can also become writing prompts.