How to teach hands on Language Arts

I think of all the areas you can teach, this is the most difficult to make hands-on, especially as your kids grow older.  There are many ways to keep it hands-on in the early years, but I’m still struggling with how to teach hands-on language arts to older kids. But as part of my Homeschool How To, I’m working to think of how to teach hands-on language arts.

Hi, Future Ticia 2025 here, and I’m updating the post to be a bit more cohesive and a bit more useful.

(as I’m updating there will be affiliate links in here)

Ideas to teach hands-on Language Arts

I’m going to break this down into the different areas of language arts, and the supplies will be grouped together, but the activities will progress from easiest to make hands-on to most difficult.

How to teach Hands-on Spelling

Future Ticia 2025 deleted my original introduction, as I’ve deleted most of my weekly wrap-up posts. At some point I will write an official spelling ideas post. Back from my teaching days, I had loads of different ways to practice spelling, and maybe at some point I will organize that into some way to practice spelling that will be fun. For today, let me give you 10 different ideas:

1. Build your words using letter tiles. This engaged the kinesthetic part of your mind as you move and find the letters. Check out my spelling board.
2. Write your words in shaving cream; this engages the senses, and as a bonus, cleans your table.
3. Write in a salt tray, or another type of tray.  We’ve got a tray of millet seeds that the kids like to write in.
4. Write your letters big in sidewalk chalk outside. This builds up some large muscle coordination.
5. Write on the easel, whether it’s with dry erase markers OR chalk. There is a lot of research that says writing like this is good for large motor control.
6. Spiral write your spelling words.
7. Quilt write your spelling words (see the collage pictures below).
8. Stairstep write your spelling words.
9. Yell out your spelling words. Not something to do on a day you have a headache.
10. Build a crossword puzzle with your spelling words.

That’s your 10 quick ways to practice your spelling.

Spelling is more interesting if it’s varied and you incorporate different ways to practice.

How to Teach Hands-on Grammar

This one is a bit more difficult, but there are a few ideas I remember using as a teacher.

1. Write sentences over-sized and use pasta to punctuate them; your kids will remember more clearly as they search for the right type of pasta.
2. Correct grammar on dry erase boards or a chalkboard.  It’s a lot more pleasant to correct when you’re not having to cross out or erase with a pencil.
3. Write the parts of speech in different colors.  When I was teaching, I had a magnet set that had all nouns in blue, verbs in red, adjectives in green, etc. It helped the kids visualize the parts of grammar.  This also engages more parts of your brain as you have to change writing utensils for the words.
4. MAD LIBS, these are great for reinforcing types of grammar, especially because the kids think it’s a type of game.
5. Play games. There are several grammar type of games to play, a sneaky way to engage your kids.

How to Teach Hands-on Reading

I think this can be the most difficult of all, because it’s not intuitive.

1. Turn flashcards into games, have two copies of them, and play Go Fish, or Memory as you memorize words.
2. Make a trail of words for the kids to read throughout the house, and have them walk over the words as they read them.
3. Throw a beach ball around with words written on it, and say the word under your hand.
4. Try reading in different positions, it gets your brain more engaged because it’s not what it’s expecting (my kids love to read sitting on an exercise ball).
5. Write labels on everything, so kids read as they do everything.
6. Check out my Book and Activity post as there are a whole slew more of ideas there.

Supplies for teaching hands-on language arts

• Shaving Cream
• Foam Magnets – Letters
• Balance Therapy Gym Ball
• Assorted Colors, 5 x 8, Ruled, 100-Pack
• Sidewalk Chalk
• Goofy Mad Libs Beach Ball
• All About Learning Press– this is the curriculum we use, it’s very hands-on, and works great for wiggly learners