My goal this year is to have some kind of lab each Friday that relates to the lesson that we are working on for the week. The students have really enjoyed this and I can see how they are relating the activity to the lesson.
I have tried to incorporate some sort of activity or hands-on approach for every concept we learn in geography. For example, we learned about population growth and we created a visual representation of that with pasta.
In computers it is all hands on. Some of the ways we do activity is after about 20 minutes of work time, I have the kids get up, go to another persons computer and work 2 minutes on that persons computer. Or sometimes we just walk around the room or do toe touches.
I let the students explain the problems that we are using as class examples. Some like to do this from the safety of their desk, while others want to come to the front of the room. At the beginning of the hour, I let the students choose three problems from their homework that we will do together. This allows the students to check and correct the problems. As I am teaching I am always asking for answers. I have started using sticks with numbers on them that correspond the number they are in my gradebook. This allows me to choose someone from random and the student should be prepared to answer.
In FACS, we don't just talk about making a particular food, the kids actually gain experience in the kitchen. They also learn to work with a variety of people in the process.
Our "word slap" vocabulary game has caught on with this group of students. It is very active, involves the whole class, either as a contestant or active audience member. Students are up and moving, cheering on their classmates, and all are paying attention to the terms and meanings.
Band is nothing but hands on activity. I can explain and demonstrate to students how things should sound but they are the ones who essentially have to figure to accomplish the task at hand on their individual instrument.
For our lesson on text types, I collected a variety of different sources that the students could touch, look in, and manipulate. These different materials were to be labeled as a text type. The students had fun, were active, and had great discussion about what they were doing.
I try to do a lot of hands-on. My newest idea in this area is the foldables. You can make anything into a foldable if you stop and think about it. The presenter at the math conference I just went to talked about how important it is for some kids to actually be moving their hands as they are writing, reading, etc. I have used some of these this year and plan to use more.
I try to use a lot of active learning in my classroom, it helps students become enthusiastic about being in the classroom. We do Dance Dance Resolution where students stand on a plot diagram in the room, places on the plot diagram flash on the screen, and then students have to find that spot on the diagram. Music plays at the same time. This activates their brain and they have a little bit of fun at the same time.
All librarians goals are to help make our students "life-long learners" and "Public Library Users". How do we do this? By helping them find the types of books they like to read and encouraging them to read more than what is in the school library and help them to be very comfortable doing their own research by showing them and giving them advise and asking many, many, questions.
During my MTSS class, the students frequently go to the board to work the problems. For some reason, they like that a lot better than working the problems on paper. All 7 of the students are up at the boards working the problems, and I can see all of them going through the process at once.
Obviously we are all aware of the hands-on activities that relate to PE. Kristin introduced me to “Activities That Teach” books by Tom Jackson. I used these a lot in the health classroom. I just used an activity for communication where the students hand to line up in order of their birthday. They could not talk or lip words to each other. We then followed with a discussion about miscommunication, the importance of correct communication, and how we communicate all the time.
We use flashcards that the students have made to practice prefixes and suffixes that will be on the state assessment test. They play a Matching Concentration game against an opponent and then they switch and play against another student. We also use the flashcards for Inner/Outer Circle.
To get students involved I would have to go back to my metric unit. We do a lot of active learning with measuring in metrics. I also bring it to their level by making it relevant to them by using examples of lets say metric length. We use our body for measurements, EX. fist is decimeter, width of pinky is centimeter. This gives them something they have on them to make a connection with metrics.
In math we would go outside and use indirect measurement to measure the height of the flagpole, trees, anything tall. It is a concrete example of how math can be used in real life and it gets everyone involved. It's much better than doing it on a worksheet with little pictures.
I try to incorporate hands-on learning activities. It is not always easy because we can't see or hold atoms to investigate them. We create models of atoms using paper dots to represent the electrons and we draw circles to represent the nucleus and the electron levels. We practice placing electrons, protons, and neutrons on the model to learn about the structure of the atom.
My goal this year is to have some kind of lab each Friday that relates to the lesson that we are working on for the week. The students have really enjoyed this and I can see how they are relating the activity to the lesson.
ReplyDeleteI have tried to incorporate some sort of activity or hands-on approach for every concept we learn in geography. For example, we learned about population growth and we created a visual representation of that with pasta.
ReplyDeleteIn computers it is all hands on. Some of the ways we do activity is after about 20 minutes of work time, I have the kids get up, go to another persons computer and work 2 minutes on that persons computer. Or sometimes we just walk around the room or do toe touches.
ReplyDeleteI let the students explain the problems that we are using as class examples. Some like to do this from the safety of their desk, while others want to come to the front of the room. At the beginning of the hour, I let the students choose three problems from their homework that we will do together. This allows the students to check and correct the problems. As I am teaching I am always asking for answers. I have started using sticks with numbers on them that correspond the number they are in my gradebook. This allows me to choose someone from random and the student should be prepared to answer.
ReplyDeleteIn FACS, we don't just talk about making a particular food, the kids actually gain experience in the kitchen. They also learn to work with a variety of people in the process.
ReplyDeleteOur "word slap" vocabulary game has caught on with this group of students. It is very active, involves the whole class, either as a contestant or active audience member. Students are up and moving, cheering on their classmates, and all are paying attention to the terms and meanings.
ReplyDeleteBand is nothing but hands on activity. I can explain and demonstrate to students how things should sound but they are the ones who essentially have to figure to accomplish the task at hand on their individual instrument.
ReplyDeleteFor our lesson on text types, I collected a variety of different sources that the students could touch, look in, and manipulate. These different materials were to be labeled as a text type. The students had fun, were active, and had great discussion about what they were doing.
ReplyDeleteI try to do a lot of hands-on. My newest idea in this area is the foldables. You can make anything into a foldable if you stop and think about it. The presenter at the math conference I just went to talked about how important it is for some kids to actually be moving their hands as they are writing, reading, etc. I have used some of these this year and plan to use more.
ReplyDeleteI try to use a lot of active learning in my classroom, it helps students become enthusiastic about being in the classroom. We do Dance Dance Resolution where students stand on a plot diagram in the room, places on the plot diagram flash on the screen, and then students have to find that spot on the diagram. Music plays at the same time. This activates their brain and they have a little bit of fun at the same time.
ReplyDeleteAll librarians goals are to help make our students "life-long learners" and "Public Library Users". How do we do this? By helping them find the types of books they like to read and encouraging them to read more than what is in the school library and help them to be very comfortable doing their own research by showing them and giving them advise and asking many, many, questions.
ReplyDeleteDuring my MTSS class, the students frequently go to the board to work the problems. For some reason, they like that a lot better than working the problems on paper. All 7 of the students are up at the boards working the problems, and I can see all of them going through the process at once.
ReplyDeleteObviously we are all aware of the hands-on activities that relate to PE. Kristin introduced me to “Activities That Teach” books by Tom Jackson. I used these a lot in the health classroom. I just used an activity for communication where the students hand to line up in order of their birthday. They could not talk or lip words to each other. We then followed with a discussion about miscommunication, the importance of correct communication, and how we communicate all the time.
ReplyDeleteWe use flashcards that the students have made to practice prefixes and suffixes that will be on the state assessment test. They play a Matching Concentration game against an opponent and then they switch and play against another student. We also use the flashcards for Inner/Outer Circle.
ReplyDeleteTo get students involved I would have to go back to my metric unit. We do a lot of active learning with measuring in metrics. I also bring it to their level by making it relevant to them by using examples of lets say metric length. We use our body for measurements, EX. fist is decimeter, width of pinky is centimeter. This gives them something they have on them to make a connection with metrics.
ReplyDeleteIn math we would go outside and use indirect measurement to measure the height of the flagpole, trees, anything tall. It is a concrete example of how math can be used in real life and it gets everyone involved. It's much better than doing it on a worksheet with little pictures.
ReplyDeleteI try to incorporate hands-on learning activities. It is not always easy because we can't see or hold atoms to investigate them. We create models of atoms using paper dots to represent the electrons and we draw circles to represent the nucleus and the electron levels. We practice placing electrons, protons, and neutrons on the model to learn about the structure of the atom.
ReplyDelete