Why is Activity-based Learning Good for Children?

Activity-based learning has emerged as a potential model for helping a child understand the concepts easily and achieve the goal of education. It was developed by David Horsburgh, a British born educationist as a methodology where children learn at their own pace while working on supervised activities. At one of the top CBSE schools in Dehradun, we achieve this through exploration, experimentation and activity.

Here’s how activity-based learning helps kids:

Ensures Active Participation

We make sure that children play an active part in their own learning where they gain hands-on experience and learn by doing those activities. Activities like show and tell, puzzles, models, pictionary and so on are conducted to engage them where they learn by being involved in these activities.

Facilitates Discovery

These activities expose kids to the world of discovery and boost their self-esteem. They learn how to socialize and get along with other children and share their knowledge, experiences and belongings. Activities like clay modeling and sandpits add to their skill sets for their overall development and learning as they learn creativity and improve their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

 Improves Knowledge Retention

This type of learning focuses on independent investigation and analysis. When kids work on their own or in small groups, they become more inquisitive which sharpens their problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. They learn from their experiences and this helps in better knowledge retention.

Makes Learning Engaging

Activities like play station, show and tell, and water station are extremely fun and engaging methods that help the children to learn in a unique and creative way. Such activities help to keep students away from TV screens and keep them gainfully occupied. 

      Instils Confidence

   Since the child learns by performing tasks independently or in groups, these activities invariably instill confidence in a child. They learn to rely on their own understanding and feel more comfortable. It also makes them more open to trying out new things and makes them more participative in other activities leading to personality development.

As the best school in Dehradun, we believe in stimulating the minds of young learners through activity-based learning as it makes them more playful, curious and independent which is so important for their early years development and education.

Info Source: www.learnwareindia.com

Importance of Learning Science through Play in Student’s Life

 

Researchers and educators agree that learning science through play is a critical part of childhood learning that should not be sidelined. Science impacts our daily lives and influences the daily decisions we make about teaching, raising our families, and engaging with our communities and the outside world. For the benefit of students and society, our students need to be more scientifically-literate than we were. The push for STEM education solely relied on providing opportunities to students to do what scientists do and think as scientists think.

 

If we look at eight K-12 Science and Engineering Practices, four practices include asking questions and identifying problems; planning and carrying out investigations; and constructing explanations and designing solutions which reveal science as a dynamic, spiraling, evolving, and inherently playful process. Educators and schools should use free and guided play on young children’s development and learning to maximize the quality of science and preschool children’s STEM skills and language. As one of the best CBSE schools in Dehradun that focuses on free and guided play when it comes to student’s learning.

 

Play primes students to behave and think like scientists

Teachers can harness and nurture the child’s curiosity and inclination towards exploration by using guided play to help students ask, investigate, think, and talk about science questions such as:

 -What should I do to make soap bubbles large?

 -How much water and soap solution should I mix for more extended durability of a soap bubble?

 -What will happen if you remove the block from the middle of the tower of blocks?

Children’s inborn curiosity compels them to explore their surroundings, test their ideas, seek out relationships and patterns, and figure out how and why the world works the way it does. All they need is a little spark in the form of guided play.

 

Materials that lead to playing also lead to science and learning

Playing with open-ended, everyday natural and designed objects such as boxes, leaves, and buttons promote creativity and exploration in many different ways, including investigating light, understanding shadows and reflections, and much more. Students do both open and more focused science investigations with everyday objects, and this exploration of knowledge can be enhanced if teachers collect them thoughtfully and use them intentionally with students.

 

As the best school in Dehradun, we believe that it is crucial now more than ever to support and enhance our students’ 21st-century skillsets – critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creative problem solving, to name a few that will serve them well next year in the wake of COVID-19. Last but not least, let the students play, experiment, and use their imaginations.

Info Source: teachthought.com