Tag Archives: teaching ideas

Activities and professional development in 2023 at your fingertips! – #readilearn

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Article by Gerard Alford, director of itc publications and thinkdrive.

With 2022 rapidly drawing to a close, it’s now time to start thinking about ideas for 2023.  Let’s explore some now!

Students love to participate in classroom decoration. Building on this, why not create a fish-themed classroom with aligned class activities. It will grow an appreciation for the majestic waterways, rich reefs and sea life that surrounds us.

You could also, on day one, set expectations by asking students: what sort of teacher would you like me to be this year? And then add the follow-up question: well, what type of student will you try to be?

Another great way to relate to students while also relaying important educational content is to focus lessons or classroom systems around the concept of sports and pastimes.

For example:

  • What are the chances? Students rate the chances of an outcome occurring using the terms, Will happen, Might happen, Certain. E.g., Next year, no one in our class will play a sport with a ball.
  • Systems of Communication – using umpire signals for a sport, what is the umpire communicating? E.g., Start of a game, high tackle, etc.
  • Sporty names: Using sporting team names to introduce or revisit the sounds and names of letters.

Inspired to incorporate some or all of the activities and concepts above? May I suggest the itc 2023 Early Years teachers’ diary, the itc innovative teachers’ companion. This diary has the usual planning and recording materials; however, it also contains an array of specialist K-2 lesson ideas and professional readings – including a full breakdown of the ideas touched on above!

There are also professional readings on:

  • Health and wellbeing tips
  • Phonics and word knowledge
  • Puppet play
  • Cooperative learning
  • And much more!

The activities have been assembled by a large team of writers, including Norah Colvin from readilearn, and the activities are referenced and aligned to the Australian curriculum and the Early Years Framework.

Continue reading: Activities and professional development in 2023 at your fingertips! – readilearn

Halloween-themed Lessons for K–2 Classrooms – #readilearn

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In just a little over a week, children will be celebrating Halloween. They are already planning Halloween parties and costumes, and shops are filled with Halloween decorations and merchandise. If you choose to join in the fun in the classroom, I’m here to tell you that learning can be combined with that fun. All readilearn resources are designed to encourage learning. They are not just time-filling worksheets.

readilearn Halloween resources

All readilearn Halloween-themed resources can be found via the Halloween tab in the Cultural Studies collection. Here are some favourites:

Trick or Treat — a game for Halloween

Trick or Treat is a printable game for two or more players of all ages. It is suitable for use in maths and literacy groups, with buddies or in family groups. It combines reading, mathematics, activity, and loads of fun and laughter.

The zip folder contains everything needed to play the game (just add a dice) and includes follow-up activities that can be used to extend the learning.

Find out more about the game here.

How Many Treats?

How Many Treats? is an interactive Halloween-themed addition lesson for use on the interactive whiteboard. The lesson provides practice with numbers up to ten, and involves children in counting, adding and writing number sentences.

A follow-up worksheet for independent practice can be accessed from within the resource.

Who Has More?

Who Has More? is an interactive Halloween-themed lesson in comparing numbers to ten.

The lesson provides practice in the following number concepts:

  • estimation
  • subitisation
  • counting
  • comparison
  • using the terms ‘more’ and ‘less’
  • addition
  • subtraction

A follow-up worksheet for independent practice can be accessed from within the resource.

Continue reading: Halloween-themed Lessons for K–2 Classrooms – readilearn

readilearn is Six Years Old Today! – #readilearn

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Today, Wednesday 24 August 2022 is readilearn’s sixth birthday. Thank you for joining our journey.

To celebrate this milestone, I have made a new birthday-themed interactive resource Make Words from the Word ‘Birthday‘.

This resource is designed for use with the whole class on the interactive whiteboard. Children use the letters of ‘birthday’ to see how many smaller words they can make. Each letter can be used only once in each word.

Children drag the letters to form new words, then type the words into the text box. The page of words can be printed if you wish to keep a record. Progress can also be saved for another lesson if you still have more words to find when the lesson is over. A printable PDF activity sheet for individuals or groups of children to use is also included.

As a birthday gift from readilearn to you, this resource is available free until 14 September.

It is just one of the birthday-themed resources in the collection. Others include:

Happy Birthday — an interactive resource to personalise I used it to make readilearn’s sixth birthday card. The card can be personalised and printed for children on their birthdays.

Continue reading: readilearn is Six Years Old Today! – readilearn

Dreaming with Eyes Open CBCA BOOK WEEK 2022 – #readilearn

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Book Week is almost upon us. It runs from 20 – 26 August. The theme for Book Week this year is Dreaming with Eyes Open.

The beautiful artwork in the poster for this year was created by author-illustrator Jasmine Seymour. You can hear her speak briefly about the artwork and what the theme means to her in this video in which the theme was announced. I think you’ll agree that the artwork is beautiful.

Book Week is an annual event organised by the Children’s Book Council of Australia and has been held every year since 1945. It is a celebration of Australian children’s books, their authors and illustrators. Celebrations take place in schools and libraries across Australia with displays, story telling and reading, competitions and parades. I think the favourite activity for many is dressing up as storybook characters.

Shortlisted books

All the books shortlisted for the awards are listed on the website. A ‘read more’ button beside each book takes you to teaching notes, critiques by the judges, reviews and other activities where available.

The books are organised into different categories for the awards:

  • Book of the Year: Older Readers
  • Book of the Year: Younger Readers
  • Book of the Year: Early Childhood
  • The Picture Book of the Year
  • Eve Pownall Award (a focus on factual material)
  • CBCA Award for New Illustrator

We eagerly await the announcement of the winners.

Australian School Library Day

This year, to coincide with Book Week, the first annual Australian School Library Day will held on 24 August 2022 (the Wednesday of Book Week). The purpose of the day is to highlight and celebrate school libraries. What a great combination of celebrations of children’s literature, reading and libraries. The Australian School Library Day (ASLD) website has suggestions of how you can join in the celebration.

The following information was provided by Students Need School Libraries in their promotional brochure for the day.

“Did you know?

The School Library Association of Victoria first developed School Libraries Day as far back as 1994. It was an official day for lobbying for school libraries by targeting principals and politicians. By 1999, School Libraries Day went International and was adopted by the International Association of School Librarianship. 
It now exists as International School Library Month (ISLM), where each nation is encouraged to select their own day in October to celebrate school libraries.  This year’s ISLM theme is Reading for Global Peace and Harmony. 
How fantastic to see our Aussie school library staff having a global impact!”

I agree! I’m sure you do too.

Other great resources

Continue reading: Dreaming with Eyes Open CBCA BOOK WEEK 2022 – readilearn

Lessons about recognising and counting Australian coins – #readilearn

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Money is one of those things we all need to understand to be able to participate fully in life as we know it. I think it becomes more difficult for children to understand the value of money as we move towards a cashless society, but maybe that’s because I grew up pre-cards of any kind. Now many children only see transactions made with cards or even phones and watches. Many will have no need to enter a physical bank to deposit or withdraw funds or for any other reason. It is all done online. Perhaps learning about coins and notes will one day be relegated to history lessons, but for now I think it is still important for children to learn about them and their value and they still feature in the Curriculum. For this reason, I have made some resources to support your teaching of young children about our Australian coins and their value. (Lessons about notes will be added later.)

Australian coins helps children learn to recognise, identify and describe the coins according to colour, shape and size, and the identifying icon on the tails side. Additional information is provided about the Australian animals and icons featured on the tails side of each coin. This lesson is ready to teach on the interactive whiteboard.

Australian Coins – Let’s count $1 gives children practice in counting collections of coins to $1.

There are three separate sections which can be used over a series of lessons.

  1. Count groups of coins of the same value that equal $1.
  2. Count collections of different coins that equal $1.
  3. Make collections of coins to equal $1.

These lessons are interactive and ready to teach on the interactive whiteboard.

Count Coins to $1 is a dice game that gives students practice in

  • recognising and naming coins
  • counting the value of coins to $1
  • comparing the value of coins.

It is a perfect game for maths groups to follow-up lessons with Australian Coins and Australian Coins Let’s count $1.

Continue reading: Lessons about recognising and counting Australian coins – readilearn

Chocolate Anyone? – #readilearn

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Next Thursday 7 July is World Chocolate Day. If you ever needed an excuse to indulge in a little chocolate, this could be it. If you follow the link, you will find out some fun facts about the history of chocolate that begins more than 2 000 years ago.

If only we were allowed a little chocolate in the classroom, there are so many wonderful learning opportunities it could provide, for example:

Counting — how many chocolates all together?

Subtraction — how many left if I eat x?

Sharing (children can make equal shares, teachers can have the remainders 😉)

Multiplication — blocks of chocolate are great for arrays (columns and rows of)

Data — surveys who likes/does not like chocolate, what is the class’s favourite chocolate?

Measurement — how many chocolate bars tall are you? how many blocks balance one chocolate bar?

Chemical science — mixing, adding and removing heat, how chocolate is made, following recipes to make chocolate cake and chocolate crackles (just for starters).

Biological science — the cacao plant, where it grows, how it grows, and what it needs.

Of course, while all of these are possible, my suggestions are a bit tongue-in-cheek. However, we do have some absolutely acceptable ideas for incorporating chocolate into your program on World Chocolate Day.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of Michael Rosen. Going on a Bear Hunt is probably one of his better known books, but he is a fabulous poet and storyteller, and his website is rich with material for teachers and children. If you’ve never checked it out, I suggest you do.

On of my favourite stories, that children really love too, is Chocolate Cake. I wrote about it in the post Storytelling with author Michael Rosen.

It’s really fun, so I’ll share it again here.

Source: Chocolate Anyone? – readilearn

What’s an apostrophe for? – #readilearn

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It’s not uncommon to see apostrophes used incorrectly, even in professional writing. But apostrophes don’t have to be difficult. They really have just two uses — for contractions and to show possession. Apostrophes aren’t confusing or tricky when the rules are understood.

To support your teaching of this punctuation mark and to encourage writers to get their writing right, I have produced an interactive resource that explains, demonstrates and provides practice in its correct use. It is called Apostrophes Please!

About Apostrophes Please!

Apostrophes Please! is an interactive resource, ready for use on the interactive whiteboard. It consists of enough material for a series of lessons teaching the correct use of apostrophes in both contractions and possessive nouns.

Like other readilearn resources, Apostrophes Please! recognises the value of teacher input and the importance of teacher-student discussion. It is not designed for children to use independently. It relies simply on effective teaching.

The resource provides flexibility for the teacher to choose activities which are relevant to student needs and teaching focus. All lessons and activities encourage explanation, stimulate discussion and provide opportunities for children to practise, explain and demonstrate what they have learned. There are nineteen interactive slides and over thirty slides in all.

Organisation of Apostrophes Please!

Contractions and possessive nouns are introduced separately.

Apostrophes Please! Contractions menu
Apostrophes Please Possession menu

Both sections include three subsections, each consisting of a number of slides:

  • Learn — explanatory teaching slides introduce how apostrophes are used
  • Practice — interactive activities provide opportunities for teachers and students to discuss, demonstrate and explain how apostrophes are used
  • Check — a review of the use of apostrophes provides additional opportunities for practice, discussion and explanation to consolidate learning.

Continue reading: What’s an apostrophe for? – readilearn

Learning about Sustainability by Reducing Food Waste – #readilearn

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This post is a little different from my usual post in that I am not sharing teaching resources for the first three years of school. Instead, I am sharing information about a food rescue organisation and a sustainability program for Years 5 and 6. While I don’t usually share resources for older classes, I thought this may be useful information to have and to share with your colleagues who teach upper primary classes.

OzHarvest

OzHarvest is an Australian food rescue organisation founded in 2004 by Ronni Kahn. I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t aware of it until I read Kahn’s book A Repurposed Life in 2020 and was blown away by her dedication to helping feed people in need by saving surplus food from going to landfill. (A Repurposed Life is a fascinating and inspiring memoir, and I am happy to recommend it.)

After reading her book, I began noticing bins for accepting donations of food in the local shopping centres. I was surprised that I’d never seen them before and wondered how many times I’d walked past them, oblivious.

A quote from the website explains the OzHarvest mission:

“We are committed to halving food waste by 2030, inspiring and influencing others to do the same, and transforming lives through education.”

You can read more about the OzHarvest story and Ronni Kahn on the website here.

This video gives a very brief introduction to Ronni.

Feast

What I really wanted to share with you, though, is the OzHarvest education program called Feast with the goal of ‘Inspiring kids to eat healthy, waste less and be change-makers in their local community.’

As I said earlier, the program is for Years 5 and 6. According to the website, it is a STEM project-based learning program that runs for 7-10 weeks. The program focuses on food and fibre and the cross-curriculum priority of Sustainability.

This video gives a quick introduction to the program.

Continue reading: Learning about Sustainability by Reducing Food Waste – Readilearn

Easter lessons and activities for the first 3 years of school – #readilearn

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Easter is almost upon us. It has snuck up on me this year and I’m a bit late sharing our Easter resources since most of you will be on holidays at the end of next week. However, there is still one week before the holidays, so you may still have time to use some of these lessons and activities. Enjoy!

All our Easter resources can be found in the Cultural Studies collection here. They include:

Interactive lessons ready to teach on the interactive whiteboard

Easter Delivery — a story that gives children practice in finding combinations of numbers to ten.

The Bilby twins, Benny and Belinda, are excited to be making their first deliveries for Easter. Before they do, they must prove to Dad that they are capable of leaving the correct number of eggs for each friend’s family. Children help Benny and Belinda by working out what combinations of eggs could be delivered to the families.

Dragona’s Lost Egg — a story that encourages the development of logical thinking and problem solving.

Dragona has lost her egg and turns to her friend Artie, owner of a Lost and Found store, for help. Artie is confident of helping her as he has many eggs on his shelves. He asks Dragona to describe features of her egg, including size, shape, pattern, and colour.  He uses a process of elimination to identify which egg might be Dragona’s. Children join in the process by choosing eggs with the characteristic described.

Continue reading: Easter lessons and activities for the first 3 years of school – #readilearn

Lessons to teach 3-digit numbers – #readilearn

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The recent audit of readilearn resources for teaching number showed that, while there were many lessons for teaching understanding of number and place value to 100, lessons for teaching numbers above 100 were scant. This is somewhat understandable as confidence with numbers relies upon a firm foundation in understanding the basics of our decimal system. However, it was a situation I needed to remedy.

Last week I added 1000 Pancakes to the collection, a lesson to help children visualise 1000 objects by counting in 1s to 10, 10s to 100 and 100s to 1000.

This week, I added Let’s Count Pancakes — 3-digit numbers, a lesson that helps children recognise and represent 3-digit numbers and understand the value of each numeral in its place. The interactive lesson ready to teach on the interactive whiteboard consists of ten different slides ready to discuss with the children.

On each slide, children count the pancakes and write the number of hundreds, tens and ones they count.

Continue reading: Lessons to teach 3-digit numbers – readilearn