Student-Centered Learning Activities

by David P. Byers, Ph.D.

A traditional learning program typically involves textbooks, workbooks, and other activities that are usually performed at a desk or table. These activities are invaluable for building certain types of skills, such as penmanship, concentration, self-control, and test-taking abilities and should not be discounted or ignored. However, some young children struggle to learn in this fashion; they may easily become restless and bored or they may just seem to have a difficult time learning some material. If you find yourself fighting your child to sit still and “learn” or if you are struggling to help your child learn some material more effectively, you may want to try student-centered learning activities.

Student-learning activities are effective supplements to more traditional (textbook) learning approaches with a variety of benefits including: 1) helping students better understand abstract concepts like mathematics by making them more “real” through hands-on activities, 2) helping children enjoy learning subjects that they may not like or may find difficult, 3) helping students enjoy learning in general, and; 4) helping students through the transition period I like to call “learner maturation”. By learner maturation I mean that some students, particularly young children, may not be quite ready for traditional learning approaches for whatever reason and therefore they may benefit from a transition period during which they can learn through student-centered activities that may seem more like “playing” than “schoolwork”.

With my own children and with other children with whom I’ve worked over the years, I’ve observed a couple of key indicators that help me identify that the student may benefit from student-centered activities to allow him/her to mature as a learner. For example, some children may not feel quite comfortable with holding a pencil or pen (it feels awkward to them) and therefore penmanship and workbook activities are not enjoyable or beneficial. Other children may handle pens and pencils just fine but they are almost overly reluctant to use them for fear of making a mistake or having their work not look exactly like it “should”. Some children may just hate the thought of not being able to play with their toys and they resist having to sit at the table and write in a workbook like we might resist having to get out of a warm bed on a cold, snowy morning; subsequently, the child may demonstrate behaviors ranging from poor academic performance to severe tantrums.

Writing and spelling are two interrelated subjects in which some children benefit from non-traditional, student-centered learning activities. While some children have actual learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, others simply lack confidence with learning in these subjects. In order to build this confidence, you may find it beneficial to have your child practice writing or spelling with markers instead of pens, dry-eraser markers/board, magnetic letters, word tiles, Play-Doh, a computer, a typewriter, (remember those?), finger paints, shaving cream, or letters you’ve cut out from a variety of materials to give them texture. These “tools” often help children feel better about making mistakes because their “mistakes” can easily be fixed.

You can even use these (and other) tools in a variety of ways. For example, you can use magnetic letters to play “Wheel of Fortune” with your child’s spelling words. As you place the letters on the board (or refrigerator) one at a time, your child has to figure out which word you are trying to spell from his/her word list (either from memory or by looking at the word list). You can reveal the letters up in order or randomly. The trick is for the child to guess the word before you complete it. When the child guesses the word, he/she gets to fill in the blanks correctly using the magnetic letters. The sooner the child guesses the word, the more letters he/she gets to fill in, thus earning more points! You can decide how valuable the points are and if they are redeemable for prizes, or not.

Addition, subtraction, and multiplication may be difficult for some children; other children may either be afraid of or just not like math. A bag of money may help stimulate their interest in this subject more than a textbook might.

For example, a bag of pennies can be used to help make the traditional activity of preparing children for multiplication by learning to count by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s (as well as other amounts) more effective. Children love the ability to handle money and pennies are just the right size for small fingers. It’s fun to see children build their dexterity skills by using two fingers to grab two pennies at a time while counting by two’s. When they get to 5’s or 10’s, it’s interesting to see how they put the pennies into sets prior to counting them. Of course, groupings and sets are concepts used for both multiplication and algebra!

A bag of money is also useful for teaching basic money concepts, as well as addition and subtraction. We have a sandwich bag that contains a paper dollar, a silver dollar, a “gold” dollar, half dollars, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies in sufficient quantities that the children can make a dollar using any of the denominations. For example, they could use 10 dimes, 20 nickels, or 100 pennies to make a dollar. Or, they could use a half dollar and 50 pennies, or a quarter, 7 dimes, and a nickel. It’s fun to see what combinations they can create.

Once your child gets the basic concepts of an activity you’ve created, you can often re-use those same materials by expanding the concepts to be learned. For example, you can further the money activity by creating flash cards with purchasing scenarios. For example, “Mr. Jones bought a package of gum and gave the clerk a paper dollar. If the gum cost 25 cents, how many different ways might the clerk give Mr. Jones his change?” You can even fill a shopping bag with items that have prices on them and play store with your child (or have the children play by themselves). Of course, you probably want to price things unrealistically (under a dollar) unless you want to give your child a bag of money to play with that’s equal to your grocery budget. These sorts of activities (story problems) are in most math textbooks/workbooks, but being able to use real money to solve the problem is much more fun and educational.

If you want to help your child build other mathematic or problem-solving skills, try one of these activities. Fill a zip-lock bag with a variety of padlocks and keys and let the children figure out which key opens which lock. Have a button box filled with a variety of buttons and ask your child to sort them by color, size, type, or some other characteristic. If your child has an extensive collection of cars, dolls, rocks, or other items, you can sort these too! I don’t recommend doing this with an ant collection though!

I’ve provide just a few ideas, but there are literally thousands of student-centered learning activities that you could create in a short time using just your imagination and some simple materials. While these activities are often used with elementary-age students, you may also find them useful for older students as well; I even use this approach with college students, but we’ll have to save that information for another article! Happy learning!

The information provided on this site does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of any of the members of the Home Educators Network. HEN does not endorse the viewpoints nor recommend the products represented by any of the links from this site. These links are offered as points which are of interest and use to many homeschoolers. None of the information distributed by HEN, either verbal or written, is intended as legal advice and should not take the place of legal counsel from a qualified, informed attorney.