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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Sentence or Fragment? Worksheet Pack
Use a Sentence or Fragment worksheet to help your students build their sentence writing skills.
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Capitalisation Practice Worksheets
Use printable Capitalization Practice Worksheets to help your beginning writers learn to capitalise words in sentences.
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Persuasive Letter Example Pack
Download this persuasive letter example set featuring five model letters with labelled and unlabelled versions, perfect for teaching students the structure of a persuasive letter.
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Algebra Questions Year 6 Worksheet Set
Share these algebra questions year 6 worksheets with your students to level up their skills in identifying number patterns and following the order of operations.
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Scrambled Sentences Worksheets
Unscramble sentences and practise writing complete statements with a set of printable Scrambled Sentences Worksheets.
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5 Star Sentence Writing Pack
Use this 5 star writing checklist teaching pack to help students develop strong writing habits with a simple, effective checklist and engaging worksheets.
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Spelling Spinner Homework Activity - Differentiated
Have fun practising spelling words with an engaging Spelling Spinner Game for any spelling word list.
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Fact or Opinion Worksheet Pack
Boost critical thinking skills with this fact or opinion worksheet pack featuring five engaging worksheets where students colour-code fact and opinion sentences.
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Secret Code Spelling Worksheet Pack
Have more fun with spelling practice by using a Secret Code Spelling Worksheet!
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Subtraction Fact Fluency Assessments
Assess and track subtraction fact fluency with a printable Number Facts Fluency program for subtraction.
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Beginning Sounds Phonics Worksheets
Use these beginning sounds phonics worksheets to explore single grapheme correspondence with your students.
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The Three States of Matter – Year 5 Reading Worksheets
Use a Year 5 Reading Comprehension passage and worksheet to teach your students about the three states of matter.
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Year 3 - Estimate and Measure Length Worksheets
Estimate and measure length in metres and centimetres with a set of printable Year 3 maths worksheets
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Numbers in the Environment Worksheet
Practise identifying numbers in the environment with this "seek-and-find" worksheet.
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Number Recognition Printable Dot Maze Pack
Utilise these number recognition printable worksheets to help your students identify the numbers 1 through 20.
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Number Recognition Worksheet Pack
Use this collection of number recognition worksheets to help your students practise recognising the numbers 0 through 20 in many forms.
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Telling Time to 5 Minutes - Activity Sheets
Tell time to the nearest five minutes with a pack of printable cut-and-paste telling time activity sheets.
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Unit Fraction Colouring Sheet
Crack the colour code and practise unit fractions all while colouring in fun images.
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Elapsed Time Test
Assess your students' abilities to determine elapsed time to the whole, half, and quarter-hour with a printable Elapsed Time Test.
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The 5 Senses Worksheets - Cut and Paste
Introduce your students to the five senses with a pack of printable 5 Senses Cut and Paste Worksheets.
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Animals and Their Habitats - Cut and Paste Worksheets
Match the animals and their habitats with a pack of printable cut-and-paste worksheets.
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Polar Bear Adaptations Worksheet Pack - Comprehension Passage
Discover polar bear structural adaptations with a set of printable reading comprehension worksheets.
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Persuasive Device Definitions – Match-Up Worksheet
Have students match the persuasive devices with their definitions using this simple one-page worksheet.
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Coordinating Conjunctions Worksheet
Distribute this coordinating conjunctions worksheet to help your students practise joining clauses with conjunctions to form compound sentences.
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Consonant Digraph Phonics Journal
Help students remember and record words and examples of different consonant digraphs during your phonics lessons.
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Inference Comics - Worksheet
Use this set of comic strips when teaching your students how to infer information from everyday situations.
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Estimation Worksheets (Addition and Subtraction)
Teach your students how to use their rounding skills to estimate sums and differences with these maths worksheets.
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Growth Mindset Worksheet Pack
Help students change their mindset to a growth mindset with this set of worksheets.
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Mean Median Mode Worksheet
Use this double-sided worksheet to check students’ ability to find the mean, median and mode of given data sets.
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Dot Day Pointillism Art Activity
Celebrate Dot Day and introduce your students to the artistic style of Pointillism with an exciting Pointillism Art Activity.
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Skip Counting Worksheets (Complete the Series)
Use this set of skip counting worksheets to check student understanding of skip counting in increasing intervals of 5, 10 and 100, by finishing a series.
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Story Elements Cut and Paste Worksheets – Little Red Riding Hood
Explore story characters, settings and main events with this set of cut-and-paste worksheets based on a well-known fairy tale.