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Creations In Education Primary School Teacher
Sharing engaging lesson ideas and creating resources so you don't have to!

01/10/2026

👀 They think it’s a game… but they’re actually practising SO much more than bossy ‘e’

This is one of my favourite ways to practise the split digraph “bossy e” pattern without needing to prep a whole new activity for every skill.

And here’s a secret… ⬇️

I use the SAME resource over and over… in multiple ways.

1. Start with simple CVC → CVCe word changes:

➡️ tap → tape
➡️ kit → kite
➡️ hop → hope

This helps children see how adding the final e can change the vowel sound, rather than memorising a list of “magic e” words.

Then I extend the exact same activity:

✏️ Write a sentence using both CVC and CVCe words.

Example: I sat in the tub with my tube of toothpaste. #

✏️ Add a suffix such as -ing and rewrite the word.

Example: tap → tapping, tape → taping

✏️ Word Chains (starting with a word from the cards)

CVC Example: tub - tab - lab - lap - zap - zip - hip - hit

So one resource can become a phonics, spelling, phonemic awareness AND sentence-writing activity — without you spending your evening creating three different resources. 💃🏻

📲 Save this idea for your next bossy e lesson or COMMENT “PHONICS” for a link to this activity! 🔗

kindergartenactivities

19/08/2026

HANDWRITING TIPS ✏️

You know reading fluency is important to develop a student’s overall reading ability, but did you know HANDWRITING fluency is a thing!? 🤚🏼 it’s a very important ‘thing’ that research shows is linked to a student’s overall academic achievement!

Handwriting (while seemingly ‘simple’) requires a range of skills including:

🖐🏼 Hand-Eye Coordination
✍🏼 Fine Motor Control
💪🏼 Muscle Memory
👀 Visual Perception
📝 Bilateral Coordination + more...

Keepin’ it simple... here’s some things to keep in mind next time you teach handwriting! 👇🏼

✍🏼 Letter formation: explicitly teach and use metalanguage of letter names, features and the sounds associated with each including starting and finishing points for each letter.

✍🏼 Develop visual-motor memory by viewing, analysing and modelling correct letter formation. Focus on learning the motor pattern FIRST through air writing/gel bags/shaving cream before translating this skill onto paper.

✍🏼 Graphological Approach: introduce, teach and practise letters groups by ‘movement’ e.g. clockwise letters, diagonal letters, stick letters.

✍🏼 Phonological Approach: introduce, teach and practise letters grouped so similar looking letters (b/d) are taught APART to avoid confusion (see ‘the Carnine Order’).

✍🏼 Integrate with phonics👂🏼

✍🏼 Explicit focus for each lesson: e.g. letter formation, revision of letters with similar movement patterns, letter size.

✍🏼 Use think alouds to emphasise metalanguage. Invite students to air-trace the letters and provide non-examples to identify common errors in letter formation and sizing.

✍🏼 Integrate across the curriculum, specifically during modelled & joint writing.

✍🏼 Pre-Assess to identify student handwriting legibility, spacing, shape, size, slope (and letter knowledge).

Practise, practise, practise! In a highly over crowded curriculum, handwriting can be overlooked... but through developing your students handwriting skills and automaticity, this fluency will support them in other critical areas of their learning! 🤚🏼 🧠

Do you find it difficult to fit in time for explicit handwriting? 😪

📲 TAG A TEACHER who might like these tips ✍🏼

19/08/2026

Want EXCITEMENT about learning new vocab? TRY THIS! 👇🏼

1️⃣ Explicitly teach pronunciation + part of speech.

2️⃣ Provide a student-friendly definition.

💡 If it has multiple meanings in different contexts, explicitly teach your students this too!

3️⃣ Provide a visual to support understanding and multiple examples of how to use the word in context.

4️⃣ Students verbalise a sentence using the word in the correct context (this is great formative assessment and allows you to clarify misconceptions).

5️⃣ Provide non-examples of the word to develop deeper understandings of how to use the word.

✏️ Get students involved! If the word is a…

💡 NOUN: you might get students to draw where they’d see it!

💡 ADJECTIVE: take “pictures” with their hands of things in the classroom that fit that adjective e.g. find things that are ‘slim’.

💡Play Pictionary and have students draw something that fits the adjective e.g. a student might draw a laptop as it can be ‘slim’.

💡VERB: CHARADES! Get the kids acting out different situations where you may be ‘doing’ the word described.

6️⃣ Identify parts of speech. Is it a noun, verb or adjective?

7️⃣ Explicitly teach morphology. Research shows that morphology instruction is associated with improved reading and spelling, and determining the meaning of unfamiliar words!

8️⃣ Have student DRAW a picture that represents the word in their own mind and add a sentence that contains the word so solidify its meaning.

9️⃣ Cumulative review. It doesn’t stop there! Students need opportunities to practise and review learned words!

This may look like…

💬 Quick definition review “what does ____ mean?”
🔎 Games: iSpy, charades, vocabulary bingo, articulate
📝 Story challenge: use at least ‘x’ of your vocab words in a story.

👀 Keep newly learned words on display to students can USE them in their writing, and you can quickly point to and prompt students with questions to remind them of their learned vocabulary.

E.g. “Before you go to recess, tell me something that is… *insert adjective*”

💡 Hope this gives you some new, easy to implement ideas for your classroom!

🔗 https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-of-the-Day-Vocabulary-Booklet-Bundle-8126923

12/08/2026

Do you teach the FLOSS (or FlOSZ) spelling rule? 🦷

It’s one of my favourite to teach!

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