Linda Hartley
Hi, I am Linda Hartley and I have a passion for helping teachers to make the most of their classrooms and to create interesting learning environments. As an ex-teaching assistant with many years experience in primary schools I know all about the pressure on teachers to achieve good results in the shortest time possible.
Contact me for more information on courses.
Category Archives: numeracy
Pirate Ship and Other Pirate Displays
aaar!, originally uploaded by Sunflower Lily.
Pirates are a great theme for classroom displays and this ship is a particularly lively one. Lots of super vocabulary words and phrases, dastardly pirates and a rather good sea really make this an excellent learning and reference resource.
I think this may be a Year 2 class, as they are working on speech bubbles. Year 3 and 4 are also ideal for pirate topics. It fits very well with the literacy target of writing a story in chapters and working with the adventure story genre. It’s much more fun though if you can bring in some cross curricular elements.
Some of these ideas have been adapted from the Belair display books, which are a great source of inspiration. You’ll find a range of them in the book store
Captain Capacity
Pirate Role Play Area
Update -More Pirate Resources
Twinkl have some lovely pirate resources (free to download or order them printed and delivered for a small fee), including some lovely banners to print, a treasure map design activity and role play masks. Well worth looking at – find them here :
See Also:
Pirate Pop-Ups – moving toys in Year 3
Posted in KS1, KS2, literacy, numeracy, project based learning
Tagged boat, pirate, ship
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Hallway Display – Slide/Flip/Turn hand project
This is an interesting numeracy display which a 4th grade (Year 3) class have done. It’s obviously been the result of a whole class activity and I think using the children’s own hand prints makes quite a strong impact.
I do think it could have been more clearly labelled though. It’s not always obvious what operation has been performed and that could have been used to advantage. Had it been a classroom display a bit more interactivity could have been added with questions and cards on string to turn over to see if you were right.
Although I like the idea of the display I think it’s a bit messy. The layout spills over the edge of the board in a slightly random way which I don’t think works. I would have preferred to see it within a frame and with more even spacing. But then I’m a bit fussy like that 
Actually, classroom displays that aren’t mounted absolutely straight and evenly spaced drive me nuts!
Posted in halls and corridor displays, halls and corridors, KS2, numeracy
Tagged 4thgrade, bulletinboard, hallway, hands, slide/flip/turn, yr3
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Interactive numeracy display – Maths Questions
It can be hard to get creative with numeracy classroom displays. Here’s a lovely interactive numeracy idea to challenge early finishers. It’s also great use of the, slightly grim, brick corners many classrooms have. Rosa says:
Children have various questions to answer. This is used at the beginning of the lesson and the end, for those ‘what do I do now ?’ times.
This display could be adapted for any age just by varying the questions based on their current targets. The questions are colour coded and differentiated so they give a great opportunity for independent work.
The laminated digits and posters make this an almost instant display and, by varying the questions over the year, it can have a permanent place in the classroom. If you look closely you’ll see there is even a space underneath the questions for the children to post their solutions:
Quick to make, easy to copy with an element of interaction and space for children’s voice. All together a really great use of classroom displays as learning objects.
