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.
Complete lesson with:
Lesson Plan with photos
Visual aids
Worksheet (blank cards design with instructions)
Activity resources, printable cards for games / exercises.
Three types of cards:
Pictures only (colour and black and white versions) 2 sheets
Pictures and words (colour and black and white versions) 2 sheets
Words only (black and white and ink saving versions) 2 sheets
Features twenty pairs of homophones (total forty words), good for spelling and vocabulary.
To further consolidate homophones, try the Teachers Telling Tales Which Witch Quiz and activity pack. Receive a discount if you buy both resource packs as a bundle.
Good for spelling and vocabulary.
Can be used in class or for online teaching / home learning.
These presentations feature twenty pairs of homophones, split over two quiz PowerPoints, suitable for two lessons.
The Lesson
Starter:
a fun tongue twister activity
Main:
Quiz
Choose from the two versions with differing levels:
• Label (students drag or cut and paste correct spelling to picture)
• Annotate (students type/write words next to pictures)
Follow up activity:
create a mnemonic to remember how to spell tricky words. Examples are shown and a worksheet is included for this.
A lesson plan is included and presentations have notes as guidance.
To further consolidate homophones try the Teachers Telling Tales Pairs or Pears Games. Receive a discount if you buy both resource packs as a bundle.
This pack includes
Design Task Cards
Footwear outlines templates
Teacher’s guides with instructions and activity descriptions and ideas.
Design Task Cards (2 versions: A4 size UK spelling and letter with US spelling)
These cards are designed to spark ideas, with suggestions while being open ended for interpretation and exploration. Themes: Characters, friends and Family, Superheroes, Animals, My Hero, Occupations, Stories, Celebrations. The cards can be used for individual or collaborative tasks.
The cards could be used for other items of clothing such as hats or T shirts, homes, vehicles or anything else you can think of!
Templates
Outlines of footwear. Includes a range of socks, tights, leggings, shoes, sandals, boots.
These resources are great for awareness days:
#oddsocksday November 16th (part of Anti-bullying Week)
#LotsOfSocksDay 21st March (World Down Syndrome Day)
Related resources are available from Teachers Telling Tales, including an Odd Socks pack, sock-themed repeat patterns and Sock-topus and Friends’ animals love socks counting activities. Available as a bundle at a dis counted price.
Also see the blog post https://teacherstellingtales.com/socks-rock/
20 favourite fairy tale character frames with speech bubbles and 6 dialogue frames with two characters. Single character frames can of course be linked with others to create conversation between different characters.
Great for students to demonstrate their knowledge of well-known stories by retelling famous quotes. Also useful as creative writing activity through encouraging children to use their imagination to make up speech of their own.
Completed frames can be coloured and used to create a class book or display.
Differentiation:
for younger/less able students an adult can scribe
older/more able students can create dialogue, conversation or follow up with converting to text using speech marks.
Further ‘Once said in a Fairytale’ resources are available in the Teachers Telling Tales tes shop and this item can also be purchased as part of a bundle.
A fun resource to familiarise children with fairytale characters and favourite quotes through a range of games using the dominoes (ideas and instructions included in the pack). 16 dominoes with a colourful character on one side and a quote on the other.
Great for fairy tales or traditional tales units of study and learning about speech.
Activities to accompany ‘Flyaway Katie’ by Polly Dunbar
Good for:
Getting to know each other.
Talking about feelings.
Students learning English as an additional language.
Topics: feelings, colours, clothes, shapes, patterns.
Contents
Lesson plan with ideas for children to talk about what makes them happy.
Read and Record Sharing Sheet
Blank to enlarge for teacher to record children’s responses. Editable version for students to record with words or pictures.
Flyaway Self Portraits
Templates, blanks and with simple outline drawings to choose from. Display ideas.
Fairy tales and traditional tales are a great way to learn about speech in stories. Children love to join in with repeated phrases using different voices developing their language and drama skills.
This Bingo game is a fun way to familiarise children with fairy tale characters and favourite quotes. Contains 4 colour-coded Bingo boards featuring characters from well-known fairy tales and sets of cards for different ways to play including character names, story titles and quotes. A resource guide with instructions is included in the pack.
Ideal for younger children as boards have nine squares, including one ‘free’ space in the centre.
Great for learning about fairy tales, traditional tales, speech, game playing and social skills.
There are further ‘Once said in a fairytale’ resources available in the Teachers Telling Tales shop and this game pack can be purchased as part of a bundle.
A selection of fun fairytale activities to apply speaking, listening, reading and writing skills. Start off with a Quotes Quiz to see how well you know your traditional tales. Move on to a read, match and colour activity and finish with filling in the speech bubbles with familiar sayings or imaginative writing.
A great pack to stimulate discussion about characters and learn about speech in stories.
A fun, creative activity that is adaptable to different ages and abilities. Can be used as speaking and listening or to encourage writing on the theme of conversation and dialogue. The phone format motivates students and keeps them engaged.
The activity begins with reading examples and using inference to deduct who the phone belongs to then builds to completing the speech bubbles before inviting students to create their own dialogue using a blank template.
A guide is included for the adult and there is also a student guide to support step by step with inspiration for further exploration. Although this resources is based on fairy tales it can be used for any fictional characters or real people. It can be used to assess recall of speech or imaginatively to create speech.
The activity is presented in Word format with PNG images so it can be adapted. Students can work on the document on a computer or it can be printed out. (Instructions provided for both).
Puzzles inspired by Little Fish’s quest to find his mum in the story Hooray For Fish! by Lucy Cousins.
A colourful maze in the shape of a heart can be used to demonstrate how to solve a maze by projecting the image on an interactive whiteboard. It can also be printed and laminated for completing with dry wipe pens.
The slightly more challenging circle maze encourages problem solving and pencil control skills. There’s lots of detail in the fish and background for colouring.
A dot-to-dot picture for children to discover who Little Fish found also reinforces pencil control with the additional skill of following the numbers from 1-10. This resource is also good for colouring when complete.
This resource can also be bought as part of a Hooray For Fish bundle.
Featuring the beloved little fish and his mum from the story by Lucy Cousins, these activities explore the rhyming words: tiny and spiny, hairy and scary, carrot and parrot, lime and time, heart and dart. This pack contains sets of picture, silhouette and word cards, Bingo 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: rhyming words, 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.
These activities are a great springboard for creative work, inventing new rhyming fish.
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.
A bundle of fishy fun!
Perfect for ocean and sea topics or exploring language, shape, pattern and colour.
Includes mazes, dot-to-dots, tracing and colouring pages, Bingo and card games. Activity sheets at different levels of challenge with matching, cutting and sticking and beginning reading and writing skills.
Originally created for the IPC topic Sand and Water, this presentation is designed to stimulate children’s interest in sand, answer basic questions and inspire further exploration.
Aimed at young children it features large colourful pictures and simple text (generally one heading and a sentence on each slide, (with more detail and some links in the notes for presenters). Questions prompt children to say what they already know or think and there are a few questions for them to guess where the answer is revealed, keeping their attention.
It covers how sand is made and why it is different colours, animals that live or hide in sand, sand in the desert, how we use sand and sand art.
This presentation is great as an introduction to scientific or creative exploration of sand, for example whether dry or wet sand is best for sculpture, making patterns by sprinkling or creating texture with sand. It is also a good stimulus for researching sandy habitats and how plants and animals have adapted to living in them.
Read the poem and colour the pictures.
Good for reading comprehension, EAL, extending colours and animals vocabulary.
This poem is fantastic for introducing new colour words like ‘lavender’, ‘turquoise’, ‘lilac’. It gives students the opportunity to explore blending colours and creating lighter and darker shades using different pressure.
The worksheets with the poem allow teachers to assess students’ understanding. The blank sheet (with just the pictures) allows students to use their imagination and be encouraged to record their ideas by writing their own descriptions.
A resource guide gives suggestions for use and differentiation.
The worksheets are provided in PDF and Word (editable) formats.
Dyslexia-friendly versions are included.
Lots of fun activities to explore where minibeasts are found. Good for learning new vocabulary related to insects and small creatures, the natural world and prepositions. Can be used for games and classroom display.
Contains
a set of habitat cards and minibeast cards for sorting and matching activities.
which way home activity, choose and follow the lines
tracing lines, great for emerging writing and fine motor skills
mazes for more of a challenge
The minibeasts cards are perfect for creating class pictographs, of favourite minibeasts.
Try sorting minibeasts into groups, e.g. things that fly, nocturnal, etc.
Check out the other minbeasts resources in the Teachers Telling Tales shop, you can bundle and save.
Guess the minibeasts in a quiz (PowerPoint presentation), make up your own quiz then create a mini book.
Through describing and guessing, children develop their knowledge about minibeasts and vocabulary related to colours, patterns, parts of the body, ways of moving, prepositions, habitats.
For more of a challenge students can engage in research to find out more (links to suggested websites included).
Instructions and templates for differing abilities are included for making origami books, a ‘mini mystery minibeast’ book!
The teacher’s guide has all the information, the quiz questions and screenshots for easy reference.
Check out the other minibeasts themed resources in the Teachers Telling Tales shop with bundle and save options.
A massive minibeasts collection! Perfect for a topic on creepy crawlies and their flying friends. A range of activities from movement, board games, sudoku puzzles, mazes, Who Am I? quiz, book making, fine motor and cutting skills.
Good for mixed ability classes, students learning English and anyone who loves these little critters!
Get creative colouring these cool ice lollies. There are 4 character designs and 6 outlines of different shaped lollies to colour. Great for talking about flavours, colours, patterns and preferences.
As a challenge, children could think up a name for their ice lolly and maybe even design the packaging too.
Print or stick on card for creating textured lollies using collage with sequins, beads etc.
Check out the other ice lolly and ice cream resources by Teachers Telling Tales. This resource is included in the ‘Ice Ice Bundle’.
Some children can be anxious when they feel sick or are hurt and need to visit the school nurse. A classroom visit from the nurse to demonstrate what he/she does can help to overcome this. There are 8 editable common scenarios here to role play with class toys or teddies. For example, taking temperature, using a hot water bottle or ice pack, putting on a plaster.
If children are still anxious, especially about going to the ‘sick room’ they could take a teddy to visit the nurse with a scenario card for a further demonstration. A hospital or doctor role play area with the teddies is a good follow up to this lesson. For more information or ideas check out the post on teacherstellingtales.com https://teacherstellingtales.com/a-visit-from-the-nurse/
Update: new resources developed to encourage writing in the role play area, doctor’s consultation and prescription (simple pictorial sheet for early years).
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/doctor-s-orders-role-play-writing-frames-12248191
Pirate anagrams are a great way to introduce or reinforce topic vocabulary. This worksheet has picture clues alongside the mixed up letters and a space to write the word correctly. It can be kept to refer to when completing writing tasks to assist with spelling. Also useful as an activity for early finishers. A greyscale version is included for ink saving or for those who like to colour in their work.
The worksheet can be downloaded on its own or as part of a pirates pack, check out the other pirate themed resources by Teachers Telling Tales.