How I teach using hands on learning

For next several days I’m going to be sharing how I teach using hands on learning.  My kids are big fans of doing rather than seeing.  Their favorite and most remembered lessons are hands on.

A couple of quick things to remember:

1. Not every style will appeal to all kids.  My boys love reenactments much more than my daughter does.
2. Your house will get messy.  Be willing to have a mess, but leave time to clean it up (I need to remember that last part on the cleaning).
3. It doesn’t need to be long and involved.  Sometimes spur of the moment is the most remembered.
4. Give your kids input into the planning.  If they request something try to plan it in.

What is hands on learning?

Hands on learning can mean different things to different people.  For some, it’s adding in a craft or a cut and paste activity.  For another family it’s throwing out the textbook and building a giant model of the Trojan Horse in their family room.

And they’d both be right.

Hands on learning engages your kids, it’s trying the paint style of a famous artist, it’s going on a field trip to see the animals you just studied.  It’s creating a model of a ship.  Most of all, it’s engaging your kids with the learning so they remember it.

In this series I’m going to give you some ideas of how to get started in subject areas, places online you can find more ideas, and things you might buy to engage your kids.

I hope you all enjoy this series for how to teach using hands on learning

 

Here’s the plan for the hands on learning series:

Hands on Learning Language Arts

Hands on Learning  Math

Hands on Learning Science

Hands on Learning History

Hands on Learning Fine Arts

 

That’s five days of posts on the topic.  That should give you a pretty good idea of how to get started with hands on learning in your homeschool or classroom.