This engaging bundle of five whole-class reading sessions develops children’s understanding of toys from the past and present, while strengthening their fluency and comprehension when reading non-fiction texts.

Each lesson includes an original, illustrated two-page reading text and an accompanying 12-slide PowerPoint, providing a varied sequence of activities.

The five lessons are:
Toys Before Electricity
Our Grandparents’ Toys
Our Parents’ Toys
Toys Around the World
Toy Detectives: What Has Changed?

Together, the lessons explore how toys are made, how they work and how children’s play has changed over time. Children discover traditional toys, investigate the arrival of electronic games and explore examples from Japan, India and South Africa. They compare materials and ways of playing, recognise similarities between generations and learn how photographs, objects and memories can help us find out about the past. The final lesson brings their learning together as they become toy detectives, using clues to challenge common misconceptions about old and new toys.

Each session includes a vocabulary check to clarify unfamiliar language, followed by activities developing retrieval, explanation, inference, comparison, sequencing and summarising skills. Quick-check questions, individual thinking, partner discussions and deeper-thinking challenges encourage children to explain their ideas using evidence from the text. Accessible prompts and sentence starters support spoken responses and shared reading.

Suggested answers, support prompts and teacher guidance are provided in the slide notes. All five Word reading texts and PowerPoint presentations are fully editable.

Best suited to Year 1, the sessions can also be adapted for other KS1 learners. Ideal for linking purposeful reading comprehension with a Toys Through Time history topic, with opportunities to explore materials, technology and play around the world.