Struggling to effectively differentiate your classroom content? We get it!
Differentiation is a crucial part of teaching and learning, and it can also be one of the most challenging things to implement successfully 😓 Thankfully, we’re here to help! We’ve worked hard to ensure our resources can be easily differentiated in various ways so that you can adapt them to suit your students and context. From editable lessons to variable difficulty levels and everything in between, this blog will explore all the different ways you can differentiate our resources to make sure they perfectly suit your needs ⭐️
Have you found a resource you love but want to know whether you can change it? No worries! You’ll find the Editable tag on every editable resource’s information page, just above the download button.
Editable resources will download as a .pptx document and open in Microsoft PowerPoint. Each resource varies in its level of editability; some resources will have some elements and backgrounds locked down with editable text boxes or shapes overlaid, while other resources will be 100% editable.
If you’re having trouble editing a resource or something just isn’t looking right, feel free to get in touch with our admin unicorns at [email protected], who can help you out in a heartbeat 💗
Some resources will have both an editable and non-editable option available for download, so make sure you’ve selected the correct file! In these resources, the non-editable version will always appear as a PDF document.
Using our worksheets for differentiation is as simple as 1-2-3! 💛
Most of our worksheets and templates come with at least three different activity options for you to choose from, with each worksheet providing additional opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding. This could mean more challenging questions, a gradual release of responsibility model in action, or more open-ended tasks prompting the need for independent research and study.
Plus, with many of these tasks also being editable, the options for differentiation are truly endless 🌈
When exploring each of our worksheet resources, make sure to read the resource description carefully to find out more details about the different templates included in your download and our best tips for how to effectively use them to differentiate your learning experience!
Check out some of our favourite differentiated worksheet sets below, or simply search the webby for the specific topic you need to find all our options at your fingertips 🤌🏼
💛 Collecting Data: Lists & Tally Marks Worksheets (F-2): This set of worksheets is ideal for exploring statistics in the early years! For students requiring more scaffolding, choose one of the three topic options with included data groups and have students follow the instructions to collect and display their data. Each topic sheet comes with a blank version for students requiring further challenge, where they must create their own data groups to match the provided topic.
Still want more? The final template is completely blank, allowing students to create both the data groups and the topic question itself! You can also change this activity up by having students draw responses in the list instead of writing words, or by creating pictographs in the tally mark table.
💛 Division Problem Solving (3-6): This problem solving mat is ideal for practising division strategies across year levels and abilities! Students glue a division problem card to their sheet and break it down in a number of ways, including creating number sentences, fact families, developing word problems and more. This resource comes with eight mats for you to choose from, including 2-to-a-page options for quick tasks and versions allowing for sums with remainders. It also comes with both pre-prepared division problems and an editable document for you to use to create your own division problems to suit your class. Print as one-off worksheets, or slip into a write and wipe sleeve and print cards on thick cardstock for an easy workstation activity!
💛 Decimal Dungeon (4-5): This interactive template is perfect for the craftier hands in your class! Students assemble the papercraft by following the instructions, requiring them to add and subtract decimals. The instructions are presented in the form of differentiated task cards, with the cards increasing incrementally in difficulty by adjusting the number of decimal places and the complexity of the questions. Made to pair perfectly with the Fraction Fortress craftivity, the final result is a fun three-dimensional display piece that will get your class excited about exploring decimals!
You’ll love how flexible and editable many of our digital PowerPoints are! ⭐️
Changing text elements allows you to alter the difficulty of questions, create more (or less!) open-ended content and more. With many of our PowerPoints, you can also duplicate slides to add additional content as needed. Read on to check out some of our favourite PowerPoints for differentiation, or click here to check out the full range 🌈
💛 English Warm-Ups: These resources feature 200+ slides chock full of activities for students to use as a daily or weekly warm-up. The text on every activity is editable, allowing you to change words, sounds and content to best suit your class and context. Students can verbally discuss and share answers to each activity, or you can write answers on mini whiteboards. Alternatively, each warm-up comes with editable recording sheets for all of the activities in the Editing, Vocabulary, Text Structure and Making Comparisons categories! These recording sheets each also have two versions included; one designed to be used directly with the warm-up PowerPoint, and one that can be used standalone without the visuals. Your English lesson prep has never been easier ⭐️
💛 Mathematics Check-In POWERPOINTS (F/1): Perfect for lesson introductions, brain breaks or assessments, these editable check-in PowerPoints are conveniently aligned with the V9 Australian Curriculum. They also come with matching optional editable recording sheets, ideal for quick assessing of student understanding. All text in these PowerPoints is editable, so you can change many of the questions as needed or duplicate the slide to create more questions. Happy with the content as-is? These PowerPoints also come as printable PDF flashcards that are great for one-to-one explicit instruction. While these flashcards aren’t editable, it’s easy to simply leave out any cards that are too simple or too challenging!
💛 Interpreting Graphs Quiz POWERPOINT (3/4): Many of our quiz PowerPoints, including this fun task, contain editable text so you can change the questions as needed! This quiz also contains editable graphs and charts so you can make the data in each question more or less challenging. With all the animations, graphics and sounds included, we’ve done all the heavy lifting for you so you can simply edit as required and get to playing!
Assessments are one of the most important elements of the classroom experience to differentiate. With students working towards different targets, it’s crucial that their assessment content fairly analyses their skillset at the appropriate standard. That’s why many of our assessment resources feature editable elements and multiple template options, allowing you to easily target specific areas and differentiate to suit your classroom needs! ⭐️
Check out our full range of planning and assessment documents here, or explore our favourites below:
💛 Mathematics Tracking Tables (F-6): These tracking tables are perfect for student or teacher use and are fully editable. The provided text is sampled from the ‘At Standard’ section of the matching rubrics, aligned with the V9 Australian Curriculum. You can use the At Standard text as is, or sub in text from the ‘Working Towards’ or ‘Working Beyond’ columns as needed for individual students. Alternatively, change the text completely to better suit your local curriculum standards, or substitute standards from the rubrics of the year level above or below. You can use these tables to display student goals, highlighting text as the goal is reached, or as a personal assessment tracker alongside other resources like our check-in PowerPoints or Semester 1 assessments.
💛 Writing Feedback Templates (4-6): These editable checklist-style templates are perfect for assigning feedback on persuasive or narrative texts. Students assess their own work, then have a peer assess their work, and finally compare these to a teacher assessment. It’s ideal for students to practise identifying different elements of their writing and analysing their work against the achievement standard. Plus, with all the included text being completely editable, you can change up the checklist to suit individual requirements with ease!
💛 Planning Checklists (F-6): Our editable Planning Checklists are the planning document of your dreams! 😍 Available for English, Maths, HASS, HPE and Science for Foundation to Year 6, these checklists are aligned with the V9 Australian Curriculum and will help you plan your assessments with ease. Each download comes with three templated options to choose from: a basic template with curriculum codes, an expanded form with elaborations included, and a planning-specific template with blank space provided for writing or typing. All the text in these checklists is 100% editable, so you can swap out codes for other year levels, add in state-specific curriculum content, take notes, highlight or bold important points and more!
One of the easiest ways to differentiate your classroom experience is with our collection of activities and games. These resources often come with multiple ways to play, task cards with variable levels of difficulty, optional recording sheets and so many more ideas for simple differentiation 🥰 Not sure how to approach it? Make sure to check the individual resource’s description for our best practice ideas of how to use and differentiate the resource!
Explore some of our favourite hands-on gaming experiences below:
💛 Slice It Up! Board Game (3-5): This pizza-themed multiplication board game (which is actually a FREEBIE! 👀) is so simple to differentiate! Designed for practising the front-end multiplication strategy, the game features cards with numbers which students must draw and multiply together. Make the game simpler by removing the more challenging numbers from play, or knock out the easier numbers to increase the difficulty! The game instructions also include two versions of gameplay: beginners mode and challenge mode, adding another layer of potential challenge. We’ve also created a set of matching worksheets for this game, which include three levels of challenge perfect for every ability level.
💛 Tower Build (EY-2): This board game template is available in four different versions depending on your year level and target skill: addition to 10, addition to 20, subitising to 5 and making numbers 0-10. In this game, students represent their answers by building towers from blocks or Unifix cubes. You can choose to keep the game purely kinaesthetic, or develop students’ writing skills using the optional recording sheets included with every game. The game can also be played optionally in pairs, allowing students to work together to problem solve!
💛 Build a Zoo Area Game (4-6): Flashback to your teen years playing Zoo Tycoon with this hands-on area game 🎮 Students take turns drawing cards featuring an animal with a squared area requirement for its pen. They must create a shape with the matching area on their game board in order to keep the card. Play continues until no player can fit another pen in their zoo; the player with the most animals in their zoo wins! The detailed instructions for this game feature a number of effective ways to differentiate the game to suit all ability levels, including removing or duplicating animal cards, adding requirements for pathways, including composite shapes, developing rules around animal types and their locations, and more!
💛 Get Creative: Our resources are designed with flexibility in mind, so don’t be afraid to find creative ways to use a resource that may not have been what we initially intended! We love seeing all the wacky and wonderful ways you’ve used our downloads on our socials, so make sure to explore our tagged content @topteacher to see what other educators are doing to take our resources to the next level 💫
💛 Use & Reuse: Activities like worksheets and games are perfect for small group workstations, so printing them on thick card and slipping them into a write and wipe sleeve makes them easy to use over and over again. We like to prep multiple versions of each activity and colour-code for differentiation using highlighters or coloured card, making it super simple to pull out what you need last minute.
Include the instructions page in your printed package so that students can self-instruct (and self-differentiate!) as needed, or to make life easier when a relief teacher needs to drop in unexpectedly 🫣
💛 Delight with Decor!: Did you know that every single resource in our new decor packs is editable? That means that every poster, every bunting, every digital calendar and every PowerPoint slide can be perfectly altered to suit your classroom needs! Use our Burn Off, Ocean Wonderland or Hero Kids collections across your classroom to create a beautiful and cohesive learning environment, and edit elements on the fly as you need them! Studying topic-specific vocabulary? Add it to your Word Wall! Need to display specific instructions for different student groups? Use the PowerPoint Slides! Working towards different success criterias? Make it visible with the Learning Intentions Displays! The options really are endless 🥰
We hope you love exploring all the different options our resources have to offer! Make sure to tag us @topteacher so we can see all the exciting things you and your students create 💛
