Welcome to the Aussie Bites page for Teachers

Reading Levels

The Aussie Bites, Nibbles and Chomps series were developed by Puffin to be a fun and entertaining reading experience for young children.  It is for this reason that, while we understand and accept that they are often used for Reading Recovery or as ‘take home books’, we have chosen not to level the series (or indeed any of our titles) in any way, nor do we have plans to do so in the future.

What will I find here?

A wide range of interesting and educational language activities.

With these creatively planned and ready to use activities, you will uncover great ideas that are

• purposeful and stimulating for your students
• accessible, practical and extremely useful for teachers!

The collection of activities aims to complement and enrich your literacy programs.

Learning tasks have been designed by primary teachers to:

• address learning outcomes found in current English language guidelines
• be readily incorporated into existing language programs OR
• offer a springboard for creating your own innovative literacy program that can be tailored to suit your students

How can the activities be used?

• Print off and photocopy or make activity cards and laminate.
• As one-offs, units of work, extension or learning center tasks.
• For individual, paired, co-operative group or whole class work – adapt to suit your goals.

How do I find what I want?

The activities are set out in two main sections:

Section 1. A broad and stimulating selection of ideas.

• Compiled to enable more general use of the Aussie Bites series and any of the books within it (for tasks relating to specific titles see Section 2).
• Includes exciting ideas which offer scope for exploring collections - grouping Aussie Bites in order to focus on one or more aspects of the literature such as Authors, Illustrators, Genres or Features.

Section 2. Discussion questions relating to
specific Aussie Bites books.

• Groups of seven questions for each of the top ten Aussie Bites (as of March and Nov 2000 – updated regularly to include other most popular titles)
• Designed to target students’ language skills in reading comprehension and speaking and listening.
• Aim to promote thinking – using inference, prediction, deduction, reasoning and interpretation.
• Questions vary in levels of difficulty so can be used selectively and adapted to suit the needs of your particular students.

The discussion questions are ideal to use in any of the following ways:

• Small group guided reading
• Independent learning centre tasks
• Individual writing tasks (see the special g question!)
• Paired/shared response activities.

How do I print out what I’m after?

If you’ve used this site before, you’ll notice a change that makes things a whole lot quicker and easier for you to access. With a new improved layout, you simply click on the print icon to open the information in PDF format, giving exactly what you are after in a ready-to-use format!

Tips for making the most of the Teacher Resource Materials

ADAPT . . . MODIFY . . . SIMPLIFY . . . EXTEND . . .

You know your students. While the aim of these pages is to help and inspire you with a really valuable array of language-based tasks, the activities are designed to appeal to a general student audience. You may need to do some tailoring to cater for the individual needs of the kids in your classroom situation.

Other Resources

Don’t forget other useful resources on the Puffin site such as Aussie Nibbles. Together with these Aussie Bites materials, they offer something for readers of all ages and abilities – from those just beginning or struggling with reading, ESL students and reluctant readers, to those who require extra challenge and extension.

Do the initial work and reap the rewards long after!

Print off the activities and/or discussion questions to create sets of fabulous, multi-purpose cards.

You can make any changes (add, delete, modify to suit) first, add some colour and pizzazz with borders or simple graphics, or get the kids to do some designer decorating! Stuck onto card or paper and laminated, you then have a sturdy set of reusable cards which can be easily accessed.

A fantastic resource for

• Group discussion and guided reading
• Fast finishers to use as extension activities
• Individual writing responses
• Small group drama ideas
• Paired presentations