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Young children will enjoy colouring in this lively natural scene, and identifying insects and other crawly creatures as they work. They will develop colour awareness, fine motor skills and an understanding of the minibeasts and their natural environment, as they bring the picture alive with their own creative input.

These 3 punchy rhymes bring the past alive. Their titles are: Who Lived in the Castle?, Bowing and Curtseying, and My Castle is Old. Each contain rhyme and rhythm, while offering scope for alternative words to be slotted in (notes below provide ideas for these). There is also scope for acting-out, adding sound effects and enhancing with percussion. Suggestions for all of these are provided. They serve to prepare children for writing about castles, also enriching their vocabulary, developing their sense of rhyme and rhythm, and providing a window on the past. In addition, they promote physical development: the actions involved are fun and imagination-triggering, encouraging creative expression and physical exertion. The rhymes and illustrations are my own. 3 sheets in total -PDF.

This exciting jungle picture offers fun and learning combined, with wide open scope for colour choices, interesting shapes to shade in and a range of exotic flora and fauna to identify and focus on. This resource promotes development of fine motor skills, colour sense, shape and pattern awareness, creative expression, and an understanding of nature, wildlife and, in particular, jungle and rain forest. See my other wildlife colouring sheets for variation. Book news! ‘SQUEAK! SQUAWK! ROAR!, Amazing Animal Poems’ was published by Otter-Barry Books in January 2025. ‘Brilliant resource for schools’ - School Reading List.

This beautiful and fascinating picture of a lush, flowery meadow will inspire children to colour in the details with thought and imagination. It promotes understanding of the natural world, including mini-beasts and birds, and develops fine motor skills, colour sense and pattern and shape awareness, also offering a focus for discussion. See also my video-poem - ‘Summer Grass’ - https://youtu.be/WWBSjiBTDOg

This 5-sheet resource comprises a castle picture-poem, easier/harder, and a castle-characters picture-poem in 3 graded versions. These are attractive sheets with lively, hand-drawn illustrations of old, cobwebby, crumbling castles, the graded ones featuring characters such as a ghost, king and queen. Children have the fun of writing directly onto the castles - a particularly vivid experience in the ‘My castle is’ activity. Describing words are invited on each sheet. These writing frames are self-explanatory, having starter phrases followed by thick lines for writing, with increasing opportunities for imaginative, expressive input on the graded character sheets. For ‘My castle is’, prompt for describing words such as: old, crumbly, tall, spooky, dark, haunted, spidery, cold, windy, grand, royal, huge, hard, rat-infested, ghostly, scary, massive, golden, fine, splendid, stone, rich, ancient, mysterious, creepy, abandoned, damp, shadowy, candle-lit, and ruined. On the Castle Characters graded sheets, encourage a range of personality attributions for the ghost, king and queen, such as kind, mean, cruel, crazy, gentle, friendly, and various colours. The ghost might be see-through, floaty, spooky or dancing. This is principally a Literacy resource, though it also offers scope for expressive art through colouring, and an intriguing window onto the past.

Young children will enjoy colouring in this rabbit picture, including the grass, sun, bird and flowers in the scene. The activity promotes fine motor skills, colour differentiation, design skills, creativity, and an understanding of the natural world. The picture also offers a focus for discussion.

Your emergent writers will love choosing an item or more from this lively picture and writing the word in the space provided to complete the phrase - I can see… More words can be added, on the line or below. Where prompts are needed, point to familiar items in the picture, e.g. dog, boy, bus or bird, and help to sound out the word. Colouring in the picture can be a reward for the writing effort. This resource promotes literacy (vocabulary, phonics, independent expression and handwriting), fine motor skills, colour awareness, shading control, and awareness of the world outside. The picture also provides a focus for discussion.

**Snappy dragon rhymes - with key colours. ** Great for all ages, especially early years, developing rhythm, rhyme, language, creativity and expressive confidence. Scope for drama, music and art developments. Once there was a dragon dressed in red. He liked to stay all day in… You can guess the last word, as can the children, though some may prefer to offer alternative rhymes. Red is just one example of the numerous colours featuring in these crazy dragon verses, which lend themselves to being enacted, and even sung to a made-up tune, as well as chanted and clapped. Follow on with dragon sketches or try my dragon’s menu for easy, crazy writing fun.

These attractive star pictures are fun to write in, and there are plenty of straight lines to write on - shooting in all directions. The variations are graded in difficulty, with increasing opportunities for words and similes, the hardest having three descriptive lines to complete below, about stars, sky and space. Colouring possibilities are wide open. Recommended approach: first, in a wide space, ‘be’ stars with your group, pointing, shooting, whirling, glowing, winking, blinking, dancing, spinning. Then prompt for verbs like these, and adjectives, such as spiky, sharp, peaceful, gentle, high up, twinkly, pretty, delicate, dainty, tiny - and different colours. The similes are for sparkly stars and dark space. The 3-sheet resource has been used with rewarding results in my workshops. They are hand-drawn and home-produced, so don’t expect perfect symmetry!

Seaside writing resource for young children. “Shells can be…” with short, thick writing lines between shell representations for describing words. Supporting guide sheet for teacher also included. Start by handing round some shells, encouraging children to study, feel and listen to them. Discuss their properties, prompting for words like curly, light, hard, smooth, rough, shiny, hollow, round, twisty, pretty, patterned and delicate. Then present sheet, demonstrating how they can have a go at writing their word ideas on the lines. Perhaps try some together on the board first. After the activity, invite all to choose a word to read out or say. The shells can then be coloured or decorated.

A beautiful butterfly picture to colour. This clear but intricately patterned butterfly offers exciting colouring opportunities. An attractive activity for young children, helping development of colour sense, fine motor control, and understanding of the natural world. Supports work on seasons, mini-beasts, animals, colour and more.

Robin colouring sheet for young children. An attractive, educational, black and white drawing of a young robin, just hatched, cracked egg nearby, in a springtime setting. Clear lines to shade between, with interesting shapes and colours to consider. BOOK NEWS - I have a new book of poems for children: ‘SQUEAK! SQUAWK! ROAR! Amazing Animal Poems’, published by Otter-Barry Books. ‘A brilliant resource for schools’ - School Reading List.