By Heather Sanders.
While I realize there are a growing number of educators who find little to no value in utilizing rote learning tools such as worksheets to emphasize taught material, I am not one of them. In fact, using the free printable worksheets available at The Teacher’s Corner, I make and print worksheet-type materials on a weekly basis in the way of crossword puzzles, word searches, word scrambles, and match-up sheets.
Above are a few of the printable worksheet options available at The Teacher’s Corner.
The free printable worksheets at The Teacher’s Corner generate in one of two ways. You can select from the readily available pre-made lists or you can customize your student’s worksheets by entering your own subject matter into the online form generator.
This year Meredith is taking Texas History in our Tuesday Co-op. Each class begins with a quick vocabulary quiz and the rest of the hour is comprised of a brief lecture, an introduction to new vocabulary, the occasional read aloud or film, filling in time-lines, and an active review game.
To review the vocabulary and prepare her for the weekly quiz, Meredith completes one printable worksheet per day. She learns best by working in short blocks of time and by the repetition of reading/writing new information.
I select four free puzzle worksheets to print out for her to work each week. She quickly and efficiently works through them and then moves on to her other subjects.
As part of the customization of content, the printable worksheets also allow users to enter a title, instructions, and select the font type and size.
When appropriate, a separate KEY is generated and will print on a second page for the teacher. This is helpful for checking the student’s work on crossword puzzles, word scrambles and match-up worksheets (which we use for Pre-Tests and Tests/Quizes).
The Word Search Maker has so many different customization opportunities. As you would expect, you can select how many rows and columns you want, but you are also given choices for grid-style (square, car, diamond, spiral, star,…), font size and color, as well as word placement (forward and backward, diagonal words, up and down words,…), and whether or not you want to show the word list and its lay-out.
Then, once you have selected all the above, there are additional “fun options” to select, like unscrambling the word list BEFORE searching for the words in the puzzle.
At the end of the week, Meredith completes the Pre-Test created by the teacher and emailed to us. This Pre-Test is generated using The Teacher’s Corner’s Match-up Worksheet Maker.
Her teacher, Mrs. Hughes, enters the weekly vocabulary words in the left column of the form and the definitions in the right column, then selects for the right column to be shuffled. Again, there are several options available for customizing this worksheet.
After creating the Pre-Test, Mrs. Hughes then re-shuffles the columns to create the actual test/quiz the students will take in the upcoming co-op class.
Of course, what Mrs. Hughes cannot do is ensure that the students don’t rush through the quiz and leave a question completely unanswered. Did I mention that Meredith works in short blocks, or rather, “blasts” of time?
As I wrote recently, there are a few different learning styles in our home. When it comes to learning vocabulary words, I have discovered that the “meaningless, filler work” provided by worksheets of this sort offers a varied, yet measured way to quickly review with children who need an extra bit of repetition.
The Teacher’s Corner is a FREE online resource for educators that offers much more than the printable worksheets I have linked above. Lesson Plans, Thematic Units, Seasonal Items, Bulletin Boards and other Teacher Resources are but a few of the resources available there.
Since I realize they need advertisements to subsidize their costs, I appreciate that the advertisements are tastefully placed out of the way and that the site, in general, is not cluttered with unnecessary visual distractions like animated buttons and banners seen on many of the other free teacher resource sites. It is also easily navigable with a consistent menu in the top right corner of each page of the site.
What FREE online resources do you use to enhance your homeschool or classroom curriculum?
OMSH/Heather L. Sanders is “Momma” to three kids, Emelie, Meredith and Kenny. When not homeschooling, or writing about homeschooling, Heather is busy designing websites.