Cause and Effect

Before asking a young student to write a creative story or explain an event I like to make sure they understand cause and effect. It also helps them understand how both positive and negative effects can be used to describe an event or create excitement within a story. Here is a quick lesson for young students  - you can always add extra to make a longer or more difficult lesson.

Write one positive and one negative effect for each cause. 
Use your imagination and write complete sentences.

1. Cause: The cat climbed the tree

Positive Effect:
Negative Effect:

2. Cause: I wore a red shirt.
Positive Effect:
Negative Effect:

3. Cause: Jane washed her dog.
Positive Effect:
Negative Effect:

4. Cause: The fish swam near the coral
Positive Effect:
Negative Effect:

5. Cause: The bird landed on the branch
Positive Effect:
Negative Effect:

Cause and Effect Game:
It's not hard to get young students to use their imagination playing this game. Get a A4 piece of paper and divide the paper into two uneven columns - LHS column is used to mark whether the row is a Cause ( C ) or Effect ( E ). One person writes down a cause and folds over the page so the other person can't see the answer. The next person writes an effect and then folds down the page. Repeat till the page is completed and then read out the answers. They will always make you laugh!

To make the game harder for older students set more rules about how the answers are created  use Positive ( P ) and Negative ( N ) rows, and you can include rows for a simple Description ( D ) to make a complete story.

The game helps the children use their imagination and learn how cause and effect work within a story.