English Puzzles for KS3/KS4

Rob Apperley and Gill Colley

HTML resource

Mar 09

978 1 84070 794 6

Ideal to use as starters
Suitable for all abilities
Encourages discussion

Engage your students

Finding ways to motivate students and to get them to think for themselves can be difficult. English Puzzles for KS3/KS4 is designed to help students think laterally and analytically. Ideal for use with students who lack motivation, the resource contains over 50 activities of the following types:

Word puzzles
Visual puzzles
Number puzzles
Spatial puzzles
Historical puzzles
Open-ended puzzles
Riddles
Optical illusions
Tricks with words.

Flexible use

The activities can be used:

as starters or plenaries
as an introduction for a specific teaching point
as discussion points for group work
to encourage peer group interaction
in after-school clubs
for out-of-school learning
as exam practice
for competitions or end-of-term quizzes.

English Puzzles for KS3/KS4 is sold with a full site licence, so everyone in your department can benefit.

Help students enjoy and achieve

Aimed at KS3 and KS4/GCSE students, the activities can be tackled by learners of all abilities. Often the path to the solution is not structured or specified; some puzzles have more than one correct answer. The activities can therefore help to develop dialogue between students and between student and teacher, and foster analytical thinking as well as healthy competition and a welcome sense of enjoyment. Even students who are normally disengaged can be readily involved – and even enthused.

Ready-to-use resources

Each activity is:

referenced to the 2008 National Curriculum at KS3 and KS4
available as a worksheet to print out and distribute to students
available as a presentation to display on an interactive whiteboard
accompanied by teacher’s notes and answers where appropriate.

Full support for staff

English Puzzles for KS3/KS4 includes full teacher’s guidance for delivering the activities in the classroom. The material can readily be used by non-specialist teachers or during cover lessons.

Introduction
Word puzzles
Logic puzzles
Riddles
Numerical puzzles
Spatial puzzles
Trick questions
Optical illusions
Resources