"hands-on"

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Home : 2003 : September : 20

"hands-on"
By Julianne

Well, I think you need her definition of "hands-on". If she's only opposed to worksheets, then you have a lot more leeway. Literacy learning, which is the primary job of all elementary teachers, requires the use of paper
and pencil. But we don't need to be using worksheets to accomplish literacy. I have been teaching off and on (mostly on) since 1976. When I began the only way to make worksheets was with the dreaded purple ditto machine. If you didn't pass out from the smell, your hands turned permanently purple (I can still find specks of that ink around my cuticles )
So here are some literacy

learning activities you can use instead of worksheets:
Group activities where students are required to write down what they have discussed.
Graphic organizers that students fill in with facts they have read, or parts of stories or other data.
Interactive writing exercises where the whole class or a group participates in writing a story, poem or factual piece.
Partner activities like file folder games, flash cards or "pair and share".
Literacy centers that require a product like a journal entry or a spelling list.

For math you can do much more hands on along with requiring students to record their data. In math we can't expect kids to understand what they are doing unless they experiment with real objects. And we caon't expect them to be able to convey their understanding without being able to write down problems and answers. You can also have students produce real graphs or diagrams using objects, then transfer that information into written form. They don't need a preprinted worksheet to do that. It's hands-on learning because we take it from real to abstract.

I can understand your frustration. I have no real limits on what I can provide for my class. But I still find myself questioning if a particular worksheet actually teaches a concept or if it's just easier than something else I might try. Oh, and sometimes I just go for easier anyway! Don't we all?