Worksheets for Teachers
Did someone say printable worksheets? From year 1 maths worksheets to reading comprehension worksheets to printables for kindergarten and beyond, our collection of teacher-created teaching tools is ready to make learning fun and engaging for your students in all subject areas and on all primary year levels.
Explore printable activities, free worksheets, homework sheets and more — all aligned to the Australian curriculum and all created by teachers, for teachers just like you!
Teach Starter worksheets undergo a careful review process by our expert teacher team to ensure they're ready for your lesson plans ... and your students! Best of all, you know each printable is designed with the goal of turning on that lightbulb over your students' heads and producing more of those 'aha!' moments in the classroom!
Curious about how to make worksheets more engaging? Or maybe you're just wondering how worksheets became a tool used in schools? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!
Why Do Teachers Use Worksheets?
Worksheets are an important part of any teacher's toolkit — and yes, we say part because we believe in the importance of hands-on learning too (explore our full collection for plenty of student-led activities!) — but do you ever wonder how they ended up being so ubiquitous?
It was back in the mid-20th century that worksheets started to take hold in education.
The concept of individualised instruction was gaining traction, and educators recognised the need to tailor learning experiences to students' unique abilities, interests and learning styles.
Worksheets started to emerge because they were a means to provide students with both individualised practice and reinforcement of skills. Psychologists like Jean Piaget (you may know him best for his theories on children's cognitive development?) played a role here. The Swiss psychologist suggested teachers should be providing their students with materials that would advance their thinking, and worksheets offer a means for students to assess their own learning.
The real win for worksheets, however, was the invention of the photocopy machine! It made it easy for this supplemental tool to spread like wildfire!
How Do You Make Worksheets Engaging?
You already know educational printables are a beneficial learning tool. They enable students to work independently, practising and applying the concepts they've been learning in your classroom.
So how do you keep them from putting your students in boxes?
At Teach Starter, our worksheets aren't 'just worksheets.' Our expert teacher team works every day to create the tools you need to create impactful classroom experiences. That means our teacher team creates our school worksheets specifically to engage students with eye-catching graphics and creative formats. Here are some of their tips to ensure worksheets are used effectively in the classroom — and truly help engage your students!
- Use worksheets as just part of your toolbox. These are great tools to support classroom instruction and provide independent practise, and they should be balanced with a mix of other teaching tools!
- Mix up your worksheet types. Teach Starter's cut-and-paste worksheets, for example, add an interactive element to help hold students' attention.
- Encourage students to doodle. Doodle notes have taken education by storm in recent years as the visual note-taking method has been proven to improve students' focus and memory. Apply those benefits to your worksheets, and you may be surprised by how it pulls kids' attention to the page!
- Add plastic sleeves. Slipping worksheets into plastic sleeves and allow students to use wipe-away pens on the sleeves is a good way to extend the life of a worksheet — and it adds and element of fun for kids who love the chance to use pens!
- Use digital worksheets. Allow students to fill out their worksheets on classroom tablets as a means to add an extra level of engagement.
It's Not Just a Worksheet
The key to effective worksheets comes down to how you use them — a balanced approach to education combines worksheets with other instructional strategies — from hands-on activities to group work to project-based learning.
So what can you get from worksheets?
Consider this — early years students can work on their fine motor skills with our mini books, cut-and-paste worksheets and more while their upper years peers get pulled into the fun of vocabulary fun with word searches and crossword puzzle worksheets. Printable puzzles that engage students in the form of a brain game and colour by worksheets that bring art elements into maths and reading.
Worksheets also provide the opportunity for formative assessment and give your students a chance to practice problem-solving while they work independently.
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Cut and Paste Letter Sounds Worksheet Pack
Explore single letter sounds with this cut and paste worksheet pack for your early years students.
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Months of the Year Worksheets - Ordering
Use these Months of the Year printables to help your students with the months of the year.
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Free Telling Time to the Minute Worksheets
A worksheet for telling time to the minute and converting between analogue and digital times.
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4-Digit Number Riddles Cut and Paste
Use these 4-digit number worksheets to help students practise matching numbers up to 10 000 with their word and expanded forms.
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Roll and Expand Numbers Worksheet Pack
Explore place value with you rstudents using this set of levelled expanding numbers worksheets.
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Decodable Text Worksheets – Common Consonant Digraphs (Set 2)
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
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Colour by 2D Shape (Basic Shapes)
A set of five colour by shape worksheets.
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Search and Find – Valentine's Day
A fun search and find activity for Valentine's Day.
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Busy Binder - Morning Work Pages for Kindergarten
Review daily calendar, maths, literacy, and fine motor skills with a printable morning work pages for kindergarten!
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Comparing and Ordering Integers Worksheet Set
Integrate this comparing and ordering integers worksheet set into your unit on positive and negative numbers.
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Verb Group Hunt Worksheet Pack
Explore verb groups with your students using this verb group hunt worksheet pack.
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Number Recognition 0-5 Colour-by-Number Pack
Practise number recognition with this colour-by-number activity pack! Students colour varied representations of the numbers 0-5 to solidify their understanding.
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Year 2 Reading Comprehension Test - Being a Good Pet Parent
Build comprehension skills and learn about being a good pet parent by limiting pets' impact on ecosystems with a reading passage and comprehension questions.
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List of Persuasive Devices
Download this list of persuasive devices for your students to refer to when writing a persuasive text.
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Find the Spelling Errors Worksheets (3-4)
Build spelling and editing skills with printable ‘Find the Spelling Errors’ Worksheets
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Rounding Large Numbers Worksheet Set
Share this rounding large numbers worksheet set with your students so they can cut-and-paste their way to understanding rounding.
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Dot-to-Dot Alphabet Worksheets
Use this set of 3 dot-to-dot worksheets to get your youngest students practising their recognition of the alphabet.
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Punctuation Worksheets - Lower Primary
Download our no-prep punctuation worksheets to help your students practice their skills with using a variety of punctuation marks.
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Trace, Draw and Order Sentences Worksheets
Use this set of sentence cut-and-paste worksheets to help your students build simple sentences.
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Reading a Map Worksheet
Develop map skills with a map-reading worksheet.
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Factor Pairs – Worksheet
Find factor pairs to 100 with this maths worksheet.
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Novel Study – Making Predictions Before Reading Worksheet
Make predictions before reading a novel with this novel study worksheet.
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Multiplication and Division Speed Drill Worksheets – Facts of 3
A set of worksheets to help students develop fast and accurate recall of the three times tables.
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Epic Editing Workbook – Year 3 and Year 4
Use these paragraph editing worksheets to get your students practising and refining their proofreading skills.
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Personal Recount Sequencing Activity - My Broken Leg
A worksheet to use in the classroom when learning the sequence of a personal recount.
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World Map with Countries - Black and White
Teach your students about the continents and countries of the world with this black-and-white world map.
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Independent and Dependent Clauses Worksheet Pack
Introduce the concept of independent and dependent clauses with a set of printable sentence structure worksheets.
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Graphing Data Worksheets (Cartesian Plane)
Introduce these graphing data worksheets to your students to give them practise graphing real-world situations on the Cartesian plane.
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Patterns in Place Value Worksheet
Use this place value worksheet to get your students analysing decimal place value in numbers.
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Free Desert Animal Adaptations Worksheets - Comprehension
Discover desert animal adaptations with a printable reading comprehension worksheet pack for Grade 4.
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Drowning in Plastic – Reading Comprehension Worksheet
Teach your students facts about ocean pollution with this comprehensive article with accompanying comprehension activities.
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Treasure Island - Mapping Skills Worksheet
Put mapping skills into practice by creating a map of a treasure island!