hands on learning - continued

Today, we bring you another blog post by a guest blogger, Ms. Shreya Dhruve.

Shreya is a teacher at kindergarten classes of K. J. Bhalodia School at Rajkot, Gujarat. In a two part series, she talks about the hands on learning concept which is now accepted as the best way to teach basic concepts to preschool children. This is the second post on this topic, and you can read part one of from last week here.

--

HANDS ON LEARNING (PART 2 OF 2)

Learning by Doing

by Shreya Dhruve

Last week, I talked about the effectiveness of doing (as against just lecturing) -- as a tool in helping preschool children learn. Following are a few practical examples that demonstrate how hands on learning can be implemented. Use these techniques to teach your kids the basic concepts of writing, counting etc.

Writing:

Alphabets and numbers can be taught by using clay molds, counting icecream candy sticks (available at most general stores) or string beads. Encourage children to write on sand in a play area.

Colors:

Colors can be easily taught using toys. Games such as toy hunt (hidding toys and searching them based on colors) make it an interesting activity for a child.

Values:

Values such as sharing, honesty, team work, hygiene are best explained with day to day activities, stories and at times act outs.

Concepts like shelter:

After teaching the different types of housing options such as apartments, bungalows, row houses, etc, from the books, children can be taken around the neighborhood and later asked to draw the same on paper.

Quantity and comparision:

Comparitive concepts of long and short, more and less, big and small, hot and cold, can be taught by using day to day objects such straws, sticks, vessels, vegetables, etc. Concepts of long and short, big and small, ascending and descending, thick and thin, can be taught using practical objects as chalks, pencils and scale. Encourage children to handle these objects while you teach them.

When taught this way, children tend to grasp the concepts better, and they can retain and recall this information very easily.