According to research, a typical child can maintain a concentration span of roughly two to three minutes when given a task. As an educator, your student’s development and learning come first in line. Since learning can seem somewhat underwhelming to young learners, it would be in your best interests to find fun and exciting ways to make learning entertaining.
Finding innovative and educational ways to keep your little ones wanting more doesn’t have to be as tricky as figuring out your typical March Madness predictions. To help you find the best possible ways, we’ve put together 8 ways that you can use to make learning fun and exciting for your learners.
Your Top 8 Ways to Make Learning Fun
1. Breaks
Unfortunately, lesson learning tends to involve loads of lecturing and this may not be too engaging to listen to as an elementary school learner. With a short concentration span, it’s not easy to include a full educational lesson in a space of two to three minutes. So, the easiest thing to start doing is to include breaks in between your lessons.
Start the lesson with a brief introduction and then opt for a short activity to keep them active. Cover another section of the lesson and then suggest a short exercise like opting for jumping jacks. A healthy rule of thumb would be to offer a 30-second break for every six minutes of learning. You can end the class with a brief discussion.
2. Choices
Choice is a scarce commodity with kids whether it’s at home or school. By allowing your learners to have a say, you give them power and help them get more engaged. From this point, they will be eating out of your hand to find out what’s next. Try allowing them to pick what activities to do or which homework assignment they’d prefer to work on. This will also help improve their skills in decision-making.
3. Games
Kids love games and you can easily use this to your advantage since it attracts instant engagement. Games don’t require a lot of funds or prep time, and they’re excellent to use when you’re trying to initiate a memorable lesson. Should you wish to find options that are more on the affordable side, you can easily get free educational games on several online platforms.
4. Group Time
Allowing your learners to work together can help your students to grasp onto information quicker and stay engaged. With cooperation between the group members, your students will develop communication skills and critical thinking.
5. Moving Around
As an elementary school teacher, you’re well aware that learners don’t like having to sit in one spot for a long period of time. So, when you choose to take the breaks, you can opt to get the kids moving around.
6. Hand-On Activities
The concept of incorporating hands-on learning has been around for a long time. By applying activities like craft projects or arts, learners feel more involved and engage more with any subject being taught at the time whether it be Geography, Mathematics, or English. This will make the lesson meaningful and memorable.
7. Creativity
Creativity always requires you to be open to trying something new. This may leave you rather uncertain of the idea, however, trying new things on a new group of learners could work out for both you and the learner since the meaning of learning continues to change year in and out.
New and improved learning styles can be fun to implement, and allowing your learners to explore their creative sides can also work in your favor. Give your students the opportunity to modify their learning, projects, and assignments with the help of your permission. This way, learners feel involved and confident enough to make decisions in an educational setup.
8. Field Trips
Taking trips outside the classroom can be very exciting for learners. With activities like museum exhibits for science and plays for creative arts, an outdoor experience can prove to be rewarding since learners will have the opportunity to connect and engage with life. If a physical field trip is out of the question, you can opt for a virtual field trip which should also do the trick.
