Focus on a Freebie - October

Each month I shine the spotlight on one of my FREE products over on Teachers pay Teachers - an awesome spot for free teaching resources.

Click here to see how to access the best quality free downloads on TPT.

This month it's my Cause and Effect Worksheet.

Understanding cause and effect can be tricky for young minds but I've found this graphic organiser useful as a visual tool to unpacking the concept.

I always start with a physical activity to demonstrate how cause and effect works e.g.

T: If I drop this pen, what will happen?

S: It will fall on the ground.

T: What is the cause (the reason) for it falling on the ground?

S: You dropped the pen.

T: So the cause is 'I dropped the pen' and the effect is 'it fell to the ground'.

I then go over several other scenarios with students (this is also fun to brainstorm) and the sort of suggestions they come up with are:

Cause: Dropped banana skin on the ground.

Effect: Somebody fell over.

Cause: My alarm didn't go off this morning.

Effect: I was late to school.

Cause: I didn't eat breakfast this morning.

Effect: I couldn't concentrate in class.

It's also a good sneaky way to introduce other 'need to talk about topics' such as keeping clean, being on time, not talking in class etc.. you get the idea!

I do not move to subject specific cause and effect until I am 100% sure they understand the basic concept of cause verses effect and how they are interconnected. So sometimes it's good to move on to other examples which have several causes or several effects.

I have noticed, once you move into subject specific aspects of cause and effect, students can get lost in the concept very quickly - so move slowly and keep returning to the concrete materials (dropping pens, falling over etc.. )

This graphic organiser is simple yet effective and I used it from Year 3s (drawing their responses in) through to Year 6s (in the study of Australian History).