Pipe Cleaners and Clothes Pins
10/17/2020
This week first graders put spoons on their fingers and used them to dig in the dirt like an animal with claws! I feel so blessed to be teaching in-person and at a school that encourages hands-on learning, especially when I see how engaged and happy the students are. Not only do students reach higher cognitive skills through hands-on activities, but they are working on multiple skills and content areas, like fine-motor skills and art, and are directly observing, doing, and understanding what is happening.
In math, you can see our students adding and subtracting with tools like dominos and number racks that they made with beads and pipe cleaners. The number rack is a tool that helps them see and represent a number, and allows them to move the beads as they count, add, and subtract. Math also includes workshops that allow students to explore through games and activities like: domino games, making objects and designs with pattern blocks, and measuring furniture with number cubes and popsicle sticks. Students enjoy these hands-on activities because they can interact with peers (with distance and sanitizer), use their creativity, and do something that they are likely to do in the real world, like measure. Play-Doh is another fun, hands-on tool that students can use to make things like their weekly spelling words. Students also enjoy building their spelling words with magnet letters, pipe cleaners, and their personal letter cutouts. It’s wonderful seeing students get creative with making the letter K out of pipe cleaners, and hearing other students help give ideas and explain the process to their classmates. Science and social studies include many hands-on activities, as well. As you saw earlier in the year, first graders practiced using a compass that they each made from a paper plate. This week in science students explored animal adaptations with many household items. After digging in the dirt with their “claws” they had the task of finding cheerios and gummy worms with different bird beaks, or in their case, with chop sticks and clothes pins of different sizes. After exploring a few more adaptations, like blubber with Crisco, students made an organism with spikes. The goal was to make it so a bird could not eat their organism. These activities weren’t only fun, but allowed students to use their creativity, communicate and discuss methods and ideas with peers, and see the importance and function of an organisms structures. In the time of Covid-19, hands-on learning can be tricky. However, students have many of their own tools and manipulatives that they keep in their own bins. Hands-on supplies are also sanitized before and after use. Along with this, students wash or sanitize their hands before and after touching the items, and all of us work hard to maintain our distance. We all work together to stay safe so we can reap the rewards of hands-on learning, including the wonderful memories we are making. Comments are closed.
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Hali TuomiMs. Tuomi has over five years experience in ASD, where she taught first and fifth grade classrooms. An avid skier, Ms. Tuomi is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Alaska Pacific University’s Bachelor of Arts in K-8 Education. Archives
April 2021
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