Tips for preparing activities

At times, it can be difficult to know what to type of activities to prepare for your students. You want them to enjoy the tutoring lessons, you want them to learn and ultimately you want them to improve, however you lack the ideas or innovation on what to prepare? 

Nver fear, because in this blog I’d like to refresh your ideas and give you some practical activities and resources that you can prepare. And yes, it can be used for any subject or year level!

Firstly, there is an abundance of activities and resources free of charge online. One of my favourites is the soft schools website. These websites provide free printable worksheets, flashcards, quizzes and so much more! What I absolutely love about online activities, is that they’re an easy and quick way to prepare materials, saving us so much time! The only thing you must watch out for is not allowing these activities to overtake your lessons and cause you to stop planning, and to not drift away from the curriculum.

A list of websites that are useful include:

Secondly, flashcards are an easy yet effective exercise. They work on all levels! For example, you can make flashcards for spelling words, maths questions with solutions, science or legal studies terminology with definitions, etc…

If I am going to be honest, in my Senior Years, one thing I found most effective was flashcards. They helped me retain information and definitions so much more easily than written notes.

Furthermore, there are so many useful resources in our old school books. If you’re a teenager still in high school and tutoring, I urge you to not throw away your books. Whenever I, for example, have to teach language analysis or a comparative essay, I always refer to my old textbooks to help me in preparing materials. If you’re not a high school student and don’t have old textbooks, many are available for cheap prices through second-hand dealers. It may be worth purchasing these old books to help you prepare materials.

Summarising content is key to keeping students focused. Long, difficult and bulky texts frighten students. They’re overwhelming, and often hard for a student to process. Therefore, keep it simple and easy for the student to grasp and retain. Summarise all information into simple, short dot points and go through this in the session.

Apply all learned knowledge through practical games. For example, whiteboard games, such as hangman, may be a good game for spelling. I know for me, I don’t know what I would do without my portable whiteboard that I bring to almost every class. They’re a great way to teach and capture a student’s attention through visual learning.

I hope this blog has helped you in regaining some simple yet fun ways to prepare materials for your tutoring sessions. Try these out today and watch whether they’re effective for your students!

If you have any more great tips and advice like this we’d love to hear it, just head over to our Tutors in Sydney website or contact the office on 1300 654 746.

About Chiara Petrelli

Chiara is one of our Tutoring Melbourne team members. Chiara has always been a role model student and enthusiastic high achiever, earning numerous academic awards for a wide range of subjects during her school career including Italian, English, Religion and Society and Legal Studies. She achieved an impressive ATAR in the 90’s with especially strong results in English, and she is currently undertaking her Bachelor of Arts / Education degree at the University of Melbourne where she is studying to become a fully qualified School Teacher.

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