We’ve Made a Free Schools Resource Pack — and You Don’t Need to See the Show to Use It
- Alex Zawalnyski
- Apr 27
- 2 min read
Free KS1 resource pack — cross-curricular lesson plans on nature, science and drama for primary schools
If you teach KS1, you’ll know the particular challenge of finding cross-curricular material that doesn’t feel forced. Science that connects to literacy. Drama that leads somewhere. PSHE that doesn’t talk down to six-year-olds. That’s what we tried to make with this pack, and we’re offering it free to any primary school teacher who wants it.
The Truth About Trees is a puppetry and shadow theatre show for children aged 5–8, made by Apropos Theatre and running at Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August. The show explores the natural world, environmental awareness, and what it means for young people to have a voice in something that matters. Those themes turned out to translate well into classroom activities. To make the most of this opportunity, we decided to build a proper resource pack around these themes and learnings.
What’s in it
The pack contains cross-curricular lesson plans and activities, mapped to both the National Curriculum for England and Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland. It covers drama, science, literacy, PSHE, and art and design. Each activity is designed to work as a standalone lesson. You don’t need to work through the pack in order, and you don’t need to have booked to see the show to gain access.
Everything has been written with mixed-ability KS1 classes in mind. There’s differentiation guidance throughout, along with extension tasks for children who want to go further.
We’ve started to upload the first batch of activities on our website, with the rest following shortly.
Why we made it
Theatre companies don’t always think hard enough about what happens before and after a show. A child who has spent time in class talking about why trees matter, or who has made shadow puppets of woodland creatures, is going to get something different from an hour of puppetry and live music than one who walks in cold. And a child who can’t come to the show at all still deserves access to the ideas.
We also think environmental themes belong in KS1 classrooms as a matter of course, not just as a bolt-on when a visiting company shows up. If this pack is useful to teachers who’ve never heard of us and have no plans to bring a class to Edinburgh, that’s genuinely fine with us.
The pack is free to download from the Apropos Theatre website. No sign-up required. If you use any of the activities and want to let us know how they went, we’d love to hear — you can reach us through the contact page.
And if the pack does make you curious about the show itself, The Truth About Treesruns at Assembly George Square, Edinburgh, from 7–31 August 2026. School group bookings are available, and we’re happy to talk through what a trip to the Fringe looks like for a primary class if that’s something your school is considering.
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