It’s a good idea to link learning to physical activity.
I was inspired this week by my son’s teacher, who was teaching them fractions by having them throw balls into various buckets marked 1/7, 1/3, 1/4, etc. They had to add them up and avoid making an improper fraction.
I think that’s great. Because they’re doing something physical, their thinking will be linked to muscle activity – not to mention being outdoors – and it will all sink in so much more easily. The learning will stick with them longer, too.
It got me thinking about physical games we could play with kids around words.
The buckets could be labelled with letters (E, I, A, L, S, M) and the kids could throw balls into the buckets to gather letters which they could use to make words. If they miss a bucket, they can’t use that letter.
Or, the game could be about vowels. You have to try to only get your ball into the vowel buckets, and avoid the consonants. You get a point for every vowel you hit. Or you then make words that have those vowels in them.
Or, you could label the buckets with words, and try to form sentences.
Matching physical, outdoor activities will help most kids achieve better results. For certain kids, it may be the only way they can learn.
Awesome stuff. I was only this weekend using number plates to help my boy with his numeracy and writing. I think involving physical activity, especially for the reluctant restless is a great idea. Top tips.
I love these ideas. We also write all of the letters of the alphabet using sidewalk chalk on our gym carpet and have kids run, skip, jump, etc to find the letters in their name or spell the words of the week. Younger kids have fun just "searching" for hiding letters and trying to identify some.
That's brilliant. I was watching some girls in the schoolyard the other day, and they were just doing cartwheel after cartwheel. It got me thinking about how to combine cartwheels with literacy – like, cartwheel over to words to form a sentence or something… lol!