The Best Activities and Ideas for Substitute Teachers

There is an apparent shortage of teachers in Australia in both primary and high schools. With this, substitute teachers are high in demand, and often need to pull together quick last-minute lessons to accommodate for teachers on sick leave or relief time. If you’re searching for helpful materials including teacher lesson plans, worksheets, informational presentations, flashcards, engaging activities and more, visit the Resources for Teaching website. Here are some of their most popular resources that are great for substitute teachers:

This lesson plan for teachers is wonderful to help students practice using adjectives in their sentences to describe nouns. Students will explore different types of adjectives to describe feelings, numbers, colour, size, quality and shape. They also include the printable materials required to teach effortlessly, including some flashcards and an assessment worksheet to check your students understanding at the completion of the lesson. This lesson plan template for the Australian curriculum meets the ACARA outcomes for Year 1 and 2 students. 

2. Early Finisher Task Cards for ALL Primary Grades:

Includes 132 task cards for students in years 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. These bright and engaging task cards are perfect for all primary school classrooms. Plenty of activities to reinforce skills your students have learnt that will keep them busy all year through! Students can simply swap cards or pick one up when they have finished their work early. This gives you the opportunity to work with kids who are struggling with their work whilst giving something thought-provoking to the others.

3. Exploring Graphs and Data Slides:

A wonderful resource for Year 1 and 2 students learning about graphs and data in mathematics lessons. Includes multiple choice questions that are wonderful for a pre-assessment or revision to see what your students know! These questions are great for differentiation as they range from easy to more challenging. Students will be engaged with these colourful slides that contain plenty of pictures and graphs that are easy to read and interpret! There are a total of 28 questions and a variety of information to analyse. The types of graphs in the multiple-choice questions include bar graph, picture graph, tally chart and pie chart.

For more resources visit: https://resourcesforteaching.com.au/

The Best Educational Websites for Teachers

Time is a teachers most valuable asset. The daily grind of managing a classroom, collecting data, attending meetings and various aspects often leaves us feeling exhausted at the end of each working day. The role of a teacher is far from simply teaching our students. Our jobs involve planning engaging lessons and providing feedback often as well as building meaningful connections with the children in our class and dealing with all the paperwork. The profession of teaching is demanding and engulfs most of our time at school and home too. However, the internet can empower teachers by serving as an inspirational tool for new ideas and also saving valuable time. 

We have searched through the ever-growing online collection to highlight the best educational websites for busy teachers. Here you will find engaging and effective resources for teaching your students in a fun and meaningful way!

1. Resources for Teaching Website: 

Students learn valuable skills when the content and learning activities are enjoyable and understandable. The Resources for Teaching website facilitates highly engaging learning environments through our broad range of teacher created resources that are aligned with the Australian Curriculum.

They understand that teachers have an overwhelming number of tasks to complete each day; meetings, marking, programming, duties, reports and the list goes on. Their printable teacher worksheets and activities will help save you time and energy preparing educational lessons so that you can be more present with your students in the classroom.

If you need to pull a lesson together quickly, their downloadable resources are fast and easy to access and use from your computer or devices. They have plenty of fantastic tools on their website to support busy full-time and casual teachers.

2. ReadWriteThink: 

Has a wide range of teaching materials for teachers and lesson plans that can be filtered by subject, grade level or a particular theme. They have resources for students in kindergarten all the way up to Year 12. They have an extensive list of literacy resources to support English lessons that teachers will find useful and timesaving. Their website also provides a way for teachers to learn new techniques and strategies by engaging with other literacy professionals. 

3. TedEd: 

This website is filled with plenty of inspiring TED talks and animations to spark the imagination and curiosity of students in upper elementary and secondary school. Their videos are both engaging and informative providing guidance and facts about a variety of interesting topics. TedEd is versatile for teachers who may like to create their own customised lessons and add questions or discussion topics to check for student understanding. 

4. Bamboozle:

This website is great for general teacher resources. They have a large database of educational online games and activities that are wonderful for lower and upper primary school students. Their games are also great for rewarding students with some less intensive but suitable activities. 

Why Is It Important to Teach Emotional Intelligence to Your Children?

Did you know nurturing emotional intelligence in children is important for their success in interpersonal and social relationships in adulthood? The concept of emotional intelligence in kids isn’t new, and today, many parents are wondering how to tap into their kid’s emotional intelligence. According to a recent study, EQ is much more important than IQ, because it relates directly to happiness and success. This is evident as many highly intelligent adults struggle in day-to-day life due to a lack of emotional intelligence. Here are a few tips from a leading child care in Five Dock on developing emotional intelligence in kids.

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence is the term used to describe someone’s ability to express his or her emotions appropriately, to correctly interpret other people’s emotions, and to understand the triggers and outcomes of certain emotions. It’s found that kids with high emotional intelligence can be able to cope up with the emotions that help them create positive social connections. Enrolling your child in day care in Five Dock and getting early childhood education, allows them to improve their emotional intelligence and become increasingly self-aware, more effective at communicating, and better at understanding the thoughts and feelings of others.

Tips to Teach Emotional Intelligence to Children

As mentioned earlier, children with emotional intelligence are better equipped to deal with life’s challenges, such as interpersonal conflicts, stress, disappointments, and high-pressure social situations. So, it’s vital to teach your kids how to recognise their feelings, express it constructively, and identify the reasons for other’s feelings.

Five Pillars of Emotional Intelligence

• Self-awareness – The ability to recognise our own emotions.
• Self-regulation – The ability to control the reactions caused by our emotions.
• Internal Motivation – The ability to understand, think, and identify the reasons for our emotions, and what’s making us feel those emotions.
• Empathy – The tendency to understand and feel other people’s emotions.
• Social Skills – The ability to use your emotional intelligence to build and enhance strong social relationships.

Here are a few tips listed by the professionals from a Five Dock Early Childhood Centre on building emotional intelligence.

• Teach your kids about their emotions by identifying their emotions and labelling them.
• We all have our own ways of dealing with emotions. So, help your children recognise how they respond to their emotions.
• Encourage your children to share their emotions as this allows them to get a broader perspective on how to handle a problem.
• When emotions run high, explain to them that strong emotions indicate something that needs to be addressed. So, instil some problem-solving behaviour to help them work on it.

The Bottom Line

Building your child’s emotional intelligence is crucial for his or her social interaction and success. Talk to the experts from a child care in Five Dock to help you assist in improving your kids’ emotional intelligence.