Are your students learning how to write explanation texts? Are you looking for a fun and interactive way to teach them about diagrams and captions? Match It Up: Diagrams & Captions will provide your students with the opportunity to practise matching captions to diagrams and sequencing events.

Match It Up: Diagrams & Captions allows students to visually explore how processes unfold step-by-step. It supports the development of explanation writing skills by highlighting the link between diagrams and the written information that describes each stage. Matching and sequencing tasks are ideal for reinforcing both content understanding and literacy concepts.

Use this resource during writing units, science investigations, or integrated literacy lessons to build familiarity with text structures. With six topic sets included, this hands-on activity can be reused in small group settings, as a literacy rotation, or for assessment purposes.

Key Learning Outcomes:

• ✅ Recognise the features of explanation texts
• ✅ Match diagrams with related written captions
• ✅ Sequence events or stages in a logical order
• ✅ Reinforce understanding of life cycles and scientific processes
• ✅ Build visual literacy and sentence writing skills

What’s Included:

• Diagram cards for six topics:
  • - How bees make honey
  • - The water cycle
  • - Sunflower life cycle
  • - Frog life cycle
  • - Butterfly life cycle
  • - Ant life cycle
• Matching caption cards
• Arrow cards for sequencing stages
• Optional student recording sheets
• Instruction sheet for teachers

Materials Needed:

• Printed diagram, caption and arrow cards
• Scissors and glue (for recording sheets)
• Optional: student notebooks or worksheets
• Cardstock and laminator for durability

How to Use:

1. Choose one of the included topics to begin with as a class or small group.
2. Students match each diagram to its matching caption.
3. Sequence the cards in the correct order using the arrows.
4. Use the optional recording sheet for students to illustrate and label each step.
5. Discuss how the captions support the diagram and model this in explanation writing.

Ideas for Classroom Use:

• 💡 Introduce key explanation text features in a writing mini-lesson.
• 💡 Use in literacy rotations to strengthen comprehension and sequencing skills.
• 💡 Have students work in pairs or teams to build collaboration.
• 💡 Store in your relief or early finisher folders for purposeful extra tasks.
• 💡 Use cards independently to assess understanding of topic content or written structure.

Top Teacher Tips:

• 💛 Print on coloured cardstock for easy topic differentiation and reusability.
• 💛 Support early readers by reading captions aloud or keeping them attached to diagrams.
• 💛 Remove captions for a visual-only sequencing challenge.
• 💛 Follow up by asking students to write their own explanation using one of the topic sets.

Match It Up: Diagrams & Captions is an ideal way to integrate science and literacy while helping students strengthen their sequencing, text structure and writing skills in a hands-on and engaging format.

Available in our basic fun font and all Australian state fonts.