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.
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.
Logic and reasoning skills with a minibeasts theme. Featuring cute cartoon creepy crawlies, these activities are a fun way to develop thinking skills. Students cut and paste pictures to complete the sequences and sudoku squares.
Easy, medium and hard versions for different levels of challenge.
Ink saving variations included (different puzzles to the colour ones).
Perfect for a minibeasts topic, a challenge for early finishers or a discrete lesson in problem solving.
For related minibeasts resources, check out the Teachers Telling Tales shop, there are bundle and save options.
A cool collection of ice lolly and ice cream themed activities. Includes craft, colouring and design. Inspire creative ideas and develop vocabulary related to flavours, colours, toppings and discussion of preferences and opinions. Explore symmetry through completing pictures and creating designs.
Perfect for summer, holiday and food topics, parties or play dates.
Chill out this summer by making cool ice lollies! Outlines to print, colour or decorate using collage. Fold in half and paste with a lollipop stick (real or made from the template). Ten designs.
Ideas for use:
Design your own lolly - choose your shape, colour, pattern, flavour, toppings etc. Great as a stimulus for speaking or writing.
Use for role play, (no dripping unless you use a lot of glue!)
Use beads, sequins, pom poms etc. for sprinkles.
Create a cool character. Add eyes, arms, cool sunglasses etc. Googly eyes and pipe cleaners are great for this!
Make a puppet show with your characters.
At home: a great craft activity for a party or play date.
At school or play scheme: these make a fantastic display.
This is a good way to keep children occupied after making real ice lollies and waiting for them to freeze.
Check out the other ice lolly and ice cream resources by Teachers Telling Tales. You can also purchase this resources as part of the ‘Ice Ice Bundle’.
Creating these cute ice lolly characters is a fun activity for learning about symmetry. The challenge is to draw the missing side of the picture so it is the same on both sides. A grid over the image helps with drawing shapes and placing details in the correct place. You could also use a mirror, place it along the middle line to check in the reflection. There are 3 character designs to complete, two ice lolly shapes with no detail and a blank grid for creating your own designs. Colour and ink saving versions included.
Children love to create a name for their finished lolly and for an extra challenge can design the wrapper using the blank grid.
Check out the ice cream symmetry resources and other ice lolly activities by Teachers Telling Tales for summer topics or parties.
This resource can also be purchased as part of the ‘Ice Ice Bundle’.
A cool creative pack of ice cream goodies, ideal for summer topics or parties. Contains 3 activities:
Ice cream cone symmetry. complete the pictures so the delicious dessert is the same on both sides (3 designs).
‘I dream of ice cream’ design your perfect ice cream template, single and double cone versions.
Ice cream creative colouring sheets (4 designs).
Great for talking about colours, flavours, toppings, preferences.
There are similar symmetry resources featuring ice lollies in the Teachers Telling Tales shop: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/ice-lolly-symmetry-12355898
You can also purchase this resource with other ice lolly resources as part of the ‘Ice Ice Bundle’.
A mini story and quiz presentation with pattern colouring and treasure hunt activities.
Good for
Follow up to reading The Mixed-up Chameleon by Eric Carle.
Topics : Animals, Colour, Pattern, Camouflage.
Observation Skills: looking carefully at pattern and colour.
Contents and Ideas: (a resource guide is also included)
The Content Chameleon presentation. A mini story and quiz about the no-longer-Mixed-up Chameleon returning to the zoo. He has lots of fun trying out animal patterns. The children guess the animal from the chameleon’s pattern.
(All background photos are free to use and links are provided in the notes.)
Pattern Colouring Sheets. An outline of the chameleon filled with an animal pattern. Children continue the pattern to hide the chameleon. Nine animal patterns and a blank outline are provided.
Blank chameleon outlines. A portrait and landscape version. These can be used as colouring sheets or traced onto plastic pockets to explore inserting different colours and patterns. The traced chameleons can be placed around the classroom or playground for a chameleon treasure hunt. A few photos of ideas are included in the resource guide.
Free Chameleons presentation with interesting facts, free images with links, YouTube and child-friendly website links for further exploration.
A fun way to familiarise children with favourite fairy tale characters and well known quotes.
Contains 4 colour-coded Bingo boards featuring characters from well-known fairy tales and cards with quotes.
Fairy tales are a wonderful means to learn about speech in stories. Children love to join in with repeated phrases using different voices. This game is a great way to introduce or consolidate this. The quote cards can also be used for other guessing games.
Further ‘Once said in a Fairytale’ resources are available in the Teachers Telling Tales tes shop and this game can also be purchased as part of a bundle.
Creative activities based on the story book Flyaway Katie by Polly Dunbar.
Good for:
Exploring colours, shapes and patterns
Templates with patterns for mindful colouring. Outline-only templates for children to create their own patterns. Can be enlarged for painting or collage. Great for a colourful display.
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.
These card games are a fantastic way for children to become familiar with classic stories, characters and speech. 16 colourful fairy tale / traditional tale character cards and 16 corresponding quote cards to print and play. Games ideas and instructions are included.
Through playing games students learn in a fun way and also practise their social skills.
A giant collection of quizzes, games and activities on favourite fairy tales, characters and quotes. Perfect to use to introduce a fairytale topic, during the study and to and conclude / assess. The fun speech activities are a great stimulus for drama and discussion. Includes speaking, listening, reading and writing skills.
Activities to accompany the storybook ‘Flyaway Katie’ by Polly Dunbar.
Good for:
Actively involving children during story time, developing listening skills, vocabulary, following instructions.
Students learning English as an additional language.
Topics: colours, clothes, body parts, feelings.
Contents and Ideas:
Story Elements cards with colours (8), body parts (4) and clothes (4) from the story.
Give out to children individually or in pairs and ask to hold up their card when they hear it mentioned in the story.
Follow-along Sheet.
Children colour the picture of Katie, then look at the checklist with an adult.
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.
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 lesson plan on hand washing. Perfect for Global Handwashing Day, October 15th annually.
Glitter Germs activity, Card games, songs, quiz and teacher / facilitator’s notes. Links to resources such as posters and card games.
In Word format for easy editing. Differentiated activities for lower and upper primary school children.
An activity for learning about fairy tales and famous quotes from well known characters. Can children read the quote and match it to the correct character?
2 A4 sheets with 8 characters and corresponding quotes.
Can be enlarged and used for teacher modelling or group/class activity. This activity is also useful as a demonstration of how well students know fairy tales, an adult can support with reading. This resource complements the ‘Once Said in a Fairytale’ collection available in the Teachers Telling Tales tes shop.
