- Friday 26 November 2021
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Teaching aids do exactly what the name suggests: they help teachers to deliver their lessons. Teaching aids are all about supporting children's learning and making your life easier! They are usually considered to be supplementary items and can be anything from a simple timer to a reference guide. Teaching aids can quickly become classroom essentials—after incorporating them into your classroom routine you’ll wonder how you ever worked without them! In this blog we will cover the benefits of using teaching aids, teaching aid ideas and, most importantly, how we can help you.
Why are teaching aids useful?
Teaching aids are important to help you run your lessons as best as you can. They assist children with understanding and reinforcing concepts, as well as helping to keep them engaged. Teaching aids can be a great way to ensure every student, regardless of learning ability, has understood the content of the lesson. In doing this, they help you to achieve the required teaching objectives and learning outcomes. Teaching aids are also great to help manage your class and their behaviour throughout the day.
So, what can be a teaching aid?
There really isn’t a limit to what you can create and use for teaching aids! They can be visual aids, audio-based or designed for interactivity. The type of teaching aid you use is of course dependant on your class and their different learning needs. To ensure all your students are properly catered for it is best to have multiple teaching aids. Whilst we’re sure you’ve already got a few of these ready to go in your classroom, we thought we’d share a few ideas.
Teaching aid ideas
The small must-have
Whilst this isn’t exactly a ‘ground-breaking’ teaching aid idea, a timer can help ensure your lessons run smoothly. A timer is a must-have in every classroom, whether this is a physical or digital timer displayed on an interactive whiteboard. Timers can be used to let students know how long they have for an activity, or as a behaviour management tool. Non-verbal ‘attention grabbers’ like a timer displayed on a whiteboard can be an effective tool for your class to know when to settle and listen.
Props
Props are a great way to incorporate an element of fun into your lessons, as well as to help reinforce concepts. Props capture students’ interest and, most importantly, will help students to remember the lesson! Props are a no-brainer to use in your science lessons for experiments. Our STEM projects box and resource kits are a great option—all the things you need to complete your experiments are included. Fun props can also be incorporated into HASS lessons, such as world globes, or even historical dress. Whatever the theme of your lesson is, a simple physical prop relating to the topic can be a great way to illustrate and further reinforce the lesson content.
Maths teaching aids
Maths can be a tricky subject for children to grasp, so teaching aids are often needed to help explain concepts in a different or simplified way. For measurement and geometry, physical blocks and cubes are a great way to show children how area and volume can be measured. For fractions and decimals, counters are helpful. Finally, a deck of playing cards or a set of dice can also be useful teaching aids when explaining probability and statistics. These teaching aids can help to simplify tricky areas of maths as the kids are able to visualise the concepts.
Games
Games are always going to be popular with kids! Not only are they fun for the students (and us teachers too) they are a fantastic teaching aid. The class will be engaged and enthusiastic to learn, meaning they’re more likely to retain the information from the lesson. For English, we love Literacy Games and Phonic Games. For Maths, you can't go wrong with Maths Games!
What teaching aid ideas can we help with?
We have a fantastic range of teaching aids that can help you in your classroom. Keep reading to see how we can help …
Posters and charts
Posters are a must-have visual teaching aid in the classroom. Not only do they add interest to the walls of the classroom, they act as constant visual reminders to students about different concepts. Visually represented information helps children to remember as they create mental maps to recall the content. Having posters on the wall helps children to absorb information even when you’re not actively teaching that content.
Posters are also a great teaching aid from the perspective of behaviour management, as you can clearly display your expectations of your students at all times. We have a variety of posters that promote healthy behaviours, such as anti-bullying and important values. We also have some poster freebies focusing on stress management and kindness in the classroom which you can download at the links below.
Teacher references
Ever had a tricky question from a student and not been 100% sure of the answer? Our teacher references are here to help you! They cover key areas across English, maths, science and research, and are helpful to teachers of all year levels. Our teacher references come in guides and in handy fold-out-cards.
The Essentials laminated study guides are the perfect teaching aids to have in your classroom, whether you’re a new graduate or an established teacher. Being A4, they’re easy to file and keep with you at all times. They can help students to understand concepts and act as convenient reminders for you as well. Along with the laminated Essentials, we also have a great range of handbooks that help to explain and simplify content across English and Maths. Maths Handbook for teachers and parents and Maths terms and tables are two of our most popular teaching aids. They’re handy for both teachers in the classroom, and parents at home helping the kids with their maths homework.
Stickers
Stickers are one of our all-time favourite teaching aids. They are a fantastic way to give your students feedback, and also act as incentives or rewards. They can be used to help with marking, or even as part of a prize box. Many teachers utilise a ‘prize box’ to act as a behaviour management tool and incentive for their students. Stickers are a great addition to any classroom reward or prize box.
Interactive whiteboard featuring Let’s teach! Primary
Interactive whiteboards have to be one of the most revolutionary teaching aids of the 21st century. They have hugely expanded teaching possibilities, including being able to easily incorporate visual aids like video and images into lessons. Let’s teach! Primary’s student pages can be displayed on an interactive whiteboard to help you deliver engaging and informative lessons. The interactive sliders include many interesting images and videos that help children understand and absorb the lesson content.
The Let’s teach! Primary (LTP) platform a teaching aid in itself, providing all the content you need to run a lesson—from lesson plan and preparation, all the way to assessment. All you have to do is teach! We know that subjects such as HASS, Science and Health are often under-resourced, which is why we’ve decided to cover them through LTP. Let’s teach! Primary is all about making your life easier—the ultimate teaching aid, right?
Relief teaching resources
There’s nothing worse than walking unprepared into a class as a relief teacher. It can be hard to know where to start, when you don’t know what the kids have been working on! That’s where our relief teaching aids come in handy. Our range of relief teaching resources are all cross-curricular, so you’re able to cover multiple key subjects in one go. These activities can be used for the whole class, or just for the early finishers—either way you’re sorted!
At the end of the day the best teaching aid ideas are the ones that work best for YOU. Anything can be a teaching aid, as long as it is helping you do what you do best – teach! What are your favourite teaching aid ideas? Let us know in the comments or tag us on socials.