Writing from a grid

 

Last week my Year 5 Spaniards needed a bit more practice of adding up Euros and cents, and also a reminder of how numbers under 30 are just one word (we've been focussing on 31-99 recently).

I arranged some Euro coins in a grid (above) which then generated 6 different sums of money for us to add up.  If space allows on the PowerPoint slide, you can also add up the diagonals as well.

It would be easy for the children to make a grid like this to help themselves or their partner to practise, as long as you have some fake Euros to use.

There are other things that could be practised in this way too, I think.

This one, for example, is a stimulus for 6 sentences (or 8 sentences if you count the diagonals) using tengo, indefinite articles and y.  The red sentence would be: Tengo un libro, un sacapuntas y una barra de pegamento.

Children can stick the grid in their books and write the sentences underneath.

Can you think of a way you could use this grid idea?

Spicy questions

 

This term I have been experimenting with a different kind of starter for Years 3-6.  

While we are getting ready, giving books out and so on, the children see three "spicy questions" displayed on the board.  Some questions relate to previous lessons and prior learning, to check understanding and perhaps address misconceptions, while others relate the learning that will take place in that lesson.

The more peppers a question has, the "spicier" or more difficult it is.

We discuss the answers, and I click to animate the answers into the PowerPoint slide.

I'm finding the spicy questions useful as a way of "setting the scene" in the lesson.