The Power Of The Post-It

What’s the most versatile resource in Rachel Clarke’s teaching toolbox? Behold: the humble Post-it note...

When Dr Spencer Silver accidentally invented a low-tack adhesive, he could never have imagined he’d unleashed one of the most powerful teaching tools on the planet. I am, of course, talking about the Post-it note. These cheap, disposable slips of adhesive paper present endless pedagogical possibilities – some of which I can share with you here.

* Visualise maths

As teachers, we’re adept at turning the mundane into the fantastical and the humble Post-it note is no different. We use them to make bar charts and pictograms in maths, we teach multiplication by arranging them in arrays, and we can teach dividing by splitting them up and sharing them around. I recall adapting the ‘Who am I?’ parlour game by writing numbers on Post-it notes and sticking these onto the foreheads of volunteers. Then, by asking questions such as “Am I odd?”, “Am I multiple of three?”, and “Do I have two digits?” etc, the children were able to problem solve in a fun and practical context.

* Evaluate learning

Like many other teachers, I’ve used Post-it notes at the end of each day to help children evaluate their learning. I had a poster on the classroom door, a pack of sticky notes and a pencil. The poster asked the children “What have you learned today?” and they would respond accordingly, sticking their notes to the door. Interestingly, it was often the unplanned and spontaneous new learning they would recall – rather than the lessons over which I’d toiled and sweated the night before.

* Reinforce phonics

In phonics teaching, I write graphemes on separate sticky notes, which children then use to blend for reading and segment for spelling. This is really helpful for those children who struggle to hear all the phonemes in a word and it supplements strategies such as ‘sound buttons’, ‘robot talk’ and ‘phoneme frames’. By using different coloured sticky notes for vowel and consonant graphemes, I find this is also a useful tool for reinforcing the need for a consonant sound in each syllable.

* Harvest vocabulary

One reason Post-it notes are so versatile is that they come in different colours. This allows us to classify, organise, sift and sort. Many teachers harvest vocabulary from their class by asking them to write words on sticky notes, which are then collected and shared on the ‘wow word’ display. Asking children to classify their words into word-families (nouns, verbs, etc.) by using different coloured stick notes can enhance this technique, whilst also providing useful reinforcement for the all-important SPAG test.

A little twist on this idea is to become ‘adverbial collectors’. When reading and writing with the class, the children should create and collect adverbials on different coloured sticky notes: adverbs denoting time on one colour; adverbs denoting place on another. Once the children can recognise adverbial phrases, you then have a ready-made collection with which to practise those all important fronted adverbials, which you can take down from the wall, stick at the front of a sentence and punctuate with a comma (on a Post-it note, of course).

Sticking with this idea (no pun intended) different coloured notes can also be used for collecting and classifying figurative language: similes, metaphors, personification, idioms, etc. These can then be used when writing poetry and narrative texts.

* Classify information

The sticky note knows no bounds when it comes to classifying information: when writing report texts with children you can brainstorm headings for each section of their text and write these on separate sticky notes. Children can then think of information to go under each heading and write single facts on different sticky notes and place these under the correct headings. By giving pupils different coloured notes for each set or category of information, you can support their understanding of how to categorise information – and how to group similar pieces of information in order to write paragraphs.

* Map story structures

Sticky notes also lend themselves well to mapping the structure of stories that have been read in class, and to the planning and writing of original texts. For this technique, think of the sticky notes as the boxes of a flow chart and connect them with arrows.

During shared, whole-class writing, use pink sticky notes to write the generic sections of the story (introduction, problem, climax, resolution) and yellow sticky-notes to map what happens under each of those headings. Children can then adapt this structure to tell their own stories. One of the best things about Spencer Silver’s low-tack glue is that it isn’t permanent. Used by your most capable writers, sticky-notes can be lifted up, shuffled around and re-adhered in order to create stories with flashbacks and time-slips – now that’s something you can’t do with a traditional paper and pencil story plan!

* Open discussions

Tipping the balance of teacher-pupil talk during reading sessions is something we work hard on at Primary English. Post-it notes are a great little tool for this as they enable children to mark parts of the text they find interesting or puzzling; to write their own questions for discussion or to highlight evidence they’d like to use in their discussions. We like the oldest children and most able readers to come to a guided reading session having already read the text. One way to prepare children for this is by encouraging them to write summaries of each chapter on Post-it notes and stick them in the text. They will then have notes to support their discussions and these can later be transferred to their guided reading journals, added to with new thoughts, annotated and used for reading assessment.

* Self-assessment

As a final note, don’t forget that Post-it notes give children the power to self-and peer assess. Lots of teachers use pink and green pens and highlighters to assess work, but would be nervous about putting these ‘pens of power’ into the hands of the children! A comfortable middle ground can be found by using pink and green Post-it notes. This way you can encourage that all-important peer and self-assessment without worrying about over-enthusiastic use of pink and green highlighters in the children’s books.

I’ve only scratched the surface of how Post-it notes can help us in our daily work and know there are many more ways in which they can support children in their learning. If you’re looking for more ways to use Post-it notes, we’ve curated a collection on Pinterest (tinyurl.com/tppostit) and there is also the official 3M website full of teaching ideas using Post-it notes (tinyurl.com/tppostit2).

About the author

Rachel Clarke is a director at Primary English Education Consultancy Limited. Rachel and her fellow director, Charlotte Reed, are available to work with schools throughout the country (email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).