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.

Ideas to teach hands on Language Arts

I’m going to split this up into the different areas of language arts, and the supplies will all be lumped together, but this will go from easiest to make hands on to most difficult.

How to teach Hands on Spelling

If you’ve been reading my weekly wrap up posts each week, you’ve seen some of the ways I’ve tried to make spelling hands on, here’s a few quick ideas:

1. build your words using letter tiles, this engaged the kinesthetic part of your mind as you move and find the letters.
2. write your words in shaving cream, this engages the senses, and bonus cleans your table.
3. write in a salt tray, or another type of tray.  We’ve got a tray of millet seeds the kids like to write in.
4. write your letters big in sidewalk chalk outside. This builds up some large muscle coordination.

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’s 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 chalk board.  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, 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).

Supplies for teaching hands on language arts

{these are Amazon affiliate links, most of these items I’ve bought over time, and on sale at random locations, the shaving cream is usually bought at the grocery store in the cheapest type I can find}

 

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

 

Places to find hands on language arts on the web

This Reading Mama

Reading Games for School

Reading board

All Things Beautiful has some great ideas for older kids, hands on lessons for novels

 

To see the rest of the posts in the series head on over to How to Teach Using Hands on Learning

For more ideas on how people teach, visit iHomeschool Network How I Teach series.