Fiona, of Teachers Telling Tales, has taught in the UK and international schools, trained teachers, worked as environmental educator, in a range of learning support roles and she is currently a tutor.
Through Teachers Telling Tales she aspires to share this experience through creating high quality and affordable resources. While most are targeted at the primary age range, the aim is to provide versatile and adaptable resources to suit a range of ages and abilities.
Fiona, of Teachers Telling Tales, has taught in the UK and international schools, trained teachers, worked as environmental educator, in a range of learning support roles and she is currently a tutor.
Through Teachers Telling Tales she aspires to share this experience through creating high quality and affordable resources. While most are targeted at the primary age range, the aim is to provide versatile and adaptable resources to suit a range of ages and abilities.
The classic tale of Sam’s Sandwich is fantastic for engaging students as they eagerly await to discover which creature will be added with each sandwich ingredient. This pack contains resources to accompany the book, including word and picture cards for participation in read-alouds and retellings, a fill the gaps activity focussed on rhyming words (with two levels) and reading comprehension questions.
Good for food and minibeasts topics.
You may also like the Teachers Telling Tales minibeasts resources: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/minibeasts-big-bug-bundle-12340248
This pack contains two formats, PowerPoint and PDF.
Featuring the beloved little fish and his mum from the story by Lucy Cousins, these activities explore the opposites: big and little, fat and thin and happy and grumpy. This pack contains sets of picture, silhouette and word cards and simple worksheets with three levels of challenge.
There are greyscale versions of resources for those who want to save ink or include colouring as part of the activity.
Themes: opposites, fish, under the sea
Skills: shape recognition, cut and sticking, colouring, beginning reading and writing skills.
A guide is enclosed with the pack which includes ideas for card games.
This resource is part of a Teachers Telling Tales series inspired by the Hooray for Fish story and can also be purchased as part of a bundle.
Follow up reading The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle with lots of engaging cross-curricular resources. Explore animal patterns with The Content Chameleon story, quiz and colouring activities. Develop ICT skills hiding the chameleon in the backgrounds and go on a chameleon hunt. Learn more about these fascinating creatures through a presentation with video and website links. More ideas in the resource guides provided.
A pirate themed board game to learn the ‘ar’ sound and have fun talking like a pirate! Good for phonics, vocabulary, pirate topics.
Contents:
Game board (A4 size will work for 2 players, enlarge for more)
20 Clue cards with short riddles to answer, e.g. “the opposite of near”.
Answer sheet
Guide with instructions
Colour or ink saving versions.
As well as phonics this game is good for vocabulary with English learners. Talk like a Pirate ‘ar’ bingo is also available. This board game can be purchased as part of a bundle with ‘Yo ho ho’ pirate resources with a focus on the long ‘o’ sound.
These writing frames are designed to inspire young children to engage in purposeful recording through mark-making or emergent writing during their role play.
Topics: Personal Social Health Education, People who help us, Keeping healthy, parts of the body, numbers 1-5.
Skills development: speaking and listening, beginning writing.
Depending on their developmental stage, children may enjoy mark-making as they see fit, or they may follow the invitation to write names, crosses, ticks and circles.
The pictures are designed to prompt discussion and introduce and consolidate vocabulary.
The frame introduces the concept of forms and tables and includes numbers 1-5.
The writing frames can act as a guide for children role playing a visit to the doctor, prompting questions and responses such as “Where is the problem?” and “Take medicine three times a day.” The first time the frames are introduced, it would be good for an adult to model using them.
Context and Linked Resources
This resource pack was inspired by A Visit From the Nurse https://teacherstellingtales.com/a-visit-from-the-nurse/ an activity to help students overcome anxiety about visiting the school nurse (or other health care professionals).
In that lesson students observe how a nurse cares for us by demonstrating with soft toys in a range of familiar scenarios, e.g. “I bumped my head, I feel sick, I feel itchy”.
These are free to download here https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/a-visit-from-the-nurse-12174039.
As a follow up, children then explore being a carer through role play. This could be with other children (as a patient or carer) or with toys and dolls. The role play area could be set up as a health centre, hospital, veterinary clinic etc.
Includes
Greyscale versions, as you may need to print lots if they are popular! These can be made into a notebook (perhaps a prescription pad) or attached to a clipboard.
Colour versions could be laminated and used as examples displayed in the role play area, or used by the children with dry wipe pens.
A collection of resources for a unit on Flyaway Katie by Polly Dunbar. Packed with ideas, templates, and activities.
The Follow-along cards engage children with the story, develop listening skills and introduce vocabulary.
The Feelings activities include sheets to record feelings and self portraits inspired by the story to develop children’s self awareness, speaking skills and Personal, Social and Emotional Development.
Creative colouring templates (blank and patterned) of Katie and the birds are provided with display ideas.
Great for a space topic.
A fun alien poem for shared reading, worksheets with a copy of the poem for more careful reading and a space to draw the scene. A checklist is provided for students to work with a buddy and see how many of the descriptions they included in their drawing. (This could be printed on the back of the sheet). While they are challenged to include all the specified details, students can be encouraged to use their imagination to complete the scene.
The activity provides lots of opportunities for discussion and develops reading comprehension skills.
Worksheets provided in PDF and Word (editable) formats.
Dyslexia -friendly font versions are provided.
In ‘Quack! said the Billy Goat’, the silly poem by Charles Causley, the animal sounds are all mixed up. The poem is fantastic for learning about farm animals, the sounds they make and using speech bubbles.
Children enjoy making the sounds and exploring how to write them.
This resource comes with a guide with suggestions for introducing the poem, shared reading ideas to involve children and follow up games.
There are animal silhouette pictures, animal names and speech bubbles with sounds. These are in the form of a picture for retelling the poem and to make cards for games and activities.
This resource pack features a board game and a set of cards with ten minibeasts and corresponding movements.
The cards are great for brain breaks and circle times.
With the board game children perform the action when they land on the minibeast, for example, spin when they land on a spider.
There are variation prompts on the game such as saying a fact about the animal, saying how many legs it has or saying where it lives. The board also features pictures of where minibeasts are commonly found, for example, logs, flowers, a pond.
There are minibeast habitats resources (as well as a range of other minibeast activities) in the Teachers Telling Tales shop.
Contents:
Spots and Stripes worksheets and printable socks for games, templates for colouring.
Cute patterned socks matching pairs card game.
Teacher’s guide with instructions for games and ideas for activities.
These resources are great for awareness days:
#oddsocksday November 16th (part of Anti-bullying Week)
#LotsOfSocksDay 21st March (World Down Syndrome Day)
Read more ideas for sock topics here https://teacherstellingtales.com/socks-rock/
Related resources are available from Teachers Telling Tales, including sock-topus counting activities, repeat patterns and Fantastic Footwear which includes templates for socks and a variety of shoes and themed design challenge task cards.
Get them all in a bundle at a discounted price.
These worksheets feature a selection of poems from Commotion in the Ocean and Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae. Students are given the rhyming words to choose from to fill the gaps. There is space for drawing when the work is complete. There are greyscale (black and white) versions for saving on ink.
A complete lesson in a Powerpoint presentation, easily adaptable.
Includes a starter activity to engage students and draw out vocabulary, group activities to describe ice lollies using adjectives, comparatives and superlatives and analysing features of advertising. Students then apply what they have learned in creating their own advertisement for a ice lolly of their choice.
A suggested lesson plan provides guidance to educators and two printable word mats support students with inspiration and spelling.
This lesson is suitable for classroom or distance / home learning.
I have a range of creative resources on the ice lolly / ice cream theme you can check out here: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/ice-ice-bundle-12355950 and will be uploading some word problems on the same themes shortly.
An interactive story to learn about the sea turtle life cycle, natural and human threats. Children sit in a circle around a turtle nest (a hoop or mat) with 100 eggs.
As they listen to a story they take turns (going round the circle) to remove eggs as a predator or problem arises.
As the story continues, the remaining eggs are turned over to reveal hatchlings which in turn face more problems as they try to reach the sea. As juveniles in the sea there are yet more problems. How many will survive and return to the beach where they hatched to lay their own eggs? What will the beach be like when they have become an adult
Printables included in the pack:
Turtle eggs templates. Students can cut out the circles and draw their own hatchling on one side, (optional, if you prefer use the pre-made cards below).
Turtle egg and hatchling cards. Print and cut out. (Place face down for eggs and turn over for hatchlings.)
Story Scripts, 2 versions, ‘Take 5’ and ‘Against the Odds’.
Turtle problem picture cards.
Turtle problem word and picture cards.
Story Script Excerpt:
One moonlit night a green turtle heaved herself along the beach and dug a hole in the sand with her flippers.
She laid 100 eggs and took care to cover them again with sand to disguise the nest. Slowly, she made her way back to the sea where, exhausted, she slipped with relief back into the water as the sun began to rise.
Early the next morning, a dog roamed the beach and could smell where the turtle had been. She dug up part of the nest, ate five eggs and cracked five more which were eaten by ants.
Also included:
Ideas for activities using turtle problems cards. Maths (subtraction) story idea.
Related Resources:
For an active game on the threats to turtles, see the Teachers Telling Tales resource https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/turtles-in-danger-game-12237706
Improve cutting skills by cutting along the lines. Test skills with zig zag (straight) and wavy lines. Cute cartoon minibeasts at the end of each dotted line.
Check out the other minibeasts resources in the Teachers Telling Tales shop.
This resource was created to celebrate #WorldSpaceWeek 2023 (October 4–10).
Planet Anagrams / solar system spelling
This fun activity sheet was created to celebrate #WorldSpaceWeek 2023 (October 4–10).
It features cute and colourful clip art and invites students to solve the anagrams of the names of planets in our solar system and write them in order. A sneaky way to squeeze in some spelling!
Check out the free Astronaut Spelling Activity pack featuring two levels and answer sheets.
You may also like this fun Alien poem reading and drawing activity.
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/the-alien-read-and-draw-12166304
Have fun learning the ‘ar’ and long ‘o’ sounds with these games. Includes, board games, Bingo and card games.
Perfect for ‘Talk like a Pirate Day’, phonics lessons, Pirates topics and vocabulary work with English language learners.
Games keep students engaged and help them to develop social skills.
Develop phonics and reading skills with this Bingo game. Featuring 28 ‘ar’ words, there is a clue for each, for example, “The opposite of blunt”. There are 6 colour coded game boards, each with 16 words. Players must try to get 4 in a row.
Good for listening skills and consolidating vocabulary with English learners.
For more fun with the ‘ar’ sound, check out the board game:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/ar-talk-like-a-pirate-phonics-board-game-12403169
Teachers Telling Tales also have Pirate phonics packs with the long ‘o’ sound. Pirate fans, check out the pack with position activities, mazes, anagrams and sudoku.
A great pirates topic activity to keep early finishers busy.
Good for problem solving skills.
This resource goes well with the Teachers Telling Tales Pirates in Position resources. It can also be purchased as part of a bundle along with other pirate themed puzzles such as sudoku and anagrams.
A Bingo game featuring pictures of things with the long ‘o’ sound, for example, rhino, rainbow, soap, window etc. 4 color coded boards each with 16 pictures, students cover the pictures as they are called out and see if they can get 4 in a row. Includes a list of the words, 24 in total, (can be cut into cards/slips of paper).
For a fun game featuring words and pictures with this sound check out this board game:https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/yo-ho-ho-talk-like-a-pirate-games-12403172
Other Talk like a Pirate phonics resources feature the ‘ar’ sound.
Further pirate themed resources by Teachers Telling Tales include positional language activities, mazes, anagrams and sudoku. Get them all in a value bundle: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/pirates-pack-12183976
