Instructional writing – Best worksheets and resources for KS1 and KS2
1. Get resources. 2. Prepare lesson. 3. Teach instructional writing – These activities, ideas, worksheets and more will help you on your way…
- by Teachwire
Instructional writing has always been a great exercise for English lessons. It’s all about teaching children how to write specific, unambiguous, step-by-step descriptions of exactly what the reader should do. Here’s our pick of the best resources for KS1 and KS2…
- Trap a dragon with Pie Corbett
- Teach instructional writing with The BFG
- Y2 Rules of the Game writing pack
- BBC video
- Y1 magical spells instructional writing pack
- Y2 magical potions instructional writing pack
- Instructions picture book
- Viking treasure writing task
- Instructional writing model texts
- How to make KS1 instruction writing fun
- The Exact Instructions challenge
Trap a dragon with Pie Corbett
Try this writing instructions KS2 resource from Pie Corbett to show your class how to write instructions for getting rid of a pesky dragon…
Teach instructional writing with The BFG
This fun, practical and engaging Roald Dahl lesson from Julianne Britton will prove to be a favourite among pupils. It focuses on identifying and using the organisational and grammatical features of instructional writing.
Children will write a set of instructions after making their very own cup of Frobscottle, from Roald Dahl’s beloved book.
Y2 Rules of the Game writing pack
This Year 2 writing assessment resource pack from Plazoom provides the opportunity for KS1 pupils to produce cross-curricular writing that can be assessed against the Year 2 Teacher Assessment Framework (TAF).
Pupils will write the rules of a game or activity from a recent PE lesson, after revisiting their understanding of how to write instructions. A pupil writing checklist is provided to encourage independent proofreading and editing.
BBC video
This short film is from the BBC series, The Facts About Non-Fiction. In it,, Stefan Gates demonstrates the process of instructional writing using a cake recipe.
He talks through the key features of instructional writing. This includes using the correct technical terms, simple precise language and imperative or bossy verbs.
Y1 magical spells instructional writing pack
Inspire Year 1 pupils to write simple sentences to create magical spells. This Year 1 instructional writing pack from Plazoom could be used as a Halloween activity or at any point in the academic year to develop Y1 pupils’ sentence writing skills.
They will read a model text, ‘Strength Spell’, orally reciting it using actions to develop their performance and exploring its use of rhyme. They will then go on to write their own simple spells, orally rehearsing sentences before writing.
This resource pack includes:
- model text
- rhyming cards
- vocabulary cards
- magical spells idea cards
- magical spells ingredient cards
- ‘My Magical Spell’ writing paper
- teacher’s notes.
Y2 magical potions instructional writing pack
There is also a similar resource pack for Year 2 pupils on writing a wishing potion.
Instructions picture book
In this article about how to use text types to support children’s writing, James Clements suggests using Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess’s picture book Instructions to teach instructional writing. The lyrical language of the book guides a novice traveller through enchanted woods to find the way home again.
Set pupils the task of writing their own version. As James says, this creative task sure beats writing instructions for how to make a cup of tea.
Viking treasure writing task
Use this news story from The Week Junior about the theft of Viking treasure as the starting point for an instructional writing activity.
The task is to write instructions for what someone should do if their metal detector finds something of potential value.
Instructional writing model texts
Literacy Wagoll is always a great place to find fully editable model texts, and instructional writing is no exception. You’ll find everything from how to tame a unicorn to how to make an immortality potion.
The above football video, also featured on Literacy Wagoll, features lots of lovely, detailed instructional language.
How to make KS1 instruction writing fun
Getting children to write precise, concise and clear instructions doesn’t sound like the most exciting lesson on the planet. However, these tips from Mighty Writer can help you spruce up your activities.
The Exact Instructions challenge
With instructional writing you can at least rely on some human element of interpretation. For example, we expect the reader to know what a hammer and a nail is when following flat-pack instructions for building their new Ikea bookcase.
But when programming you can’t say ‘move forward a bit’, or ‘go over there’. You need to be way more precise about what a ‘bit’ is and where specifically ‘there’ is.
That’s where the ‘exact instructions challenge’ comes in. Watch and enjoy these excellent videos with your class, then you can adapt the activities into something for your class to ‘program’ their partner and ‘debug’ their instructions where necessary.
How to make a peanut better and jelly sandwich
Josh Darnit (real name, apparently) and his adorable kids kicked off this challenge with this sandwich-making video. Josh showcases the perfect attitude towards this activity. He blends the computational thinking style of carrying out the instructions with a very human warmth and humour. Plus, the kids are ace.
Best bit: At 4.10 when the poor boy (Evan) nearly has a meltdown at his dad’s shenanigans.
If the idea of 500 pieces of bread covered in peanut butter and jelly in your classroom is giving you a nervous breakdown, this lovable family followed this up with a drawing instructions challenge which might be easier to replicate in school.
How to make a bowl of cereal
Next up, the Bee family attempt to make a bowl of cereal, with wonderful descriptions like ‘the scoopy side of the spoon’ (which we believe was a discarded Pink Floyd album title) and a wonderfully deadpan poker face from Dad throughout.
Best bit: 3.47 ‘He was so close’.
How to make fresh orange juice
With kids of varying ages offering instructions the results of this one differ greatly. That’s other than the fact that dad has to drink a number of efforts, none of which can be called anything close to ‘orange juice’. All much to the children’s delight, of course.
Best bit: The infectious laughter of the kids throughout.
How to make an ice cream sundae
This one is a great example of how ambiguous pronouns can be misinterpreted. Less of a problem in everyday speech, but it highlights how often we can use them and presume the other person will know what the ‘it’ is that we’re referring to.
Also, is it bad that I still want to eat the finished efforts?
Best bit: The swirls at 3.25.
How to clean your teeth
After eating all of that lovingly prepared food you should probably give your old chompers a bit of TLC.
And if you were unsure as to the best way to go about it, the Holderness family have prepared some detailed instructions for you to follow to the letter.
Best bit: 1.41 ‘And scrub’.
