Welcome back! This is Marie again. Today I’m going to talk about a few ways to help children stay interested in school and maybe even enjoy it. I have said before that I have been in several different classrooms, ranging in grade levels from Kindergarten to 8^th Grade. The students that I worked with in Kindergarten classes loved school and sometimes didn’t even want to leave at the end of the school day. Last year I student taught in a Kindergarten classroom and some of the students in there would get so upset on Fridays because they wouldn’t be able to come back to school for two days. Anyone that steps into a classroom of older students however would probably not get the same reaction. Most of the older students live for the weekends and 3:00 when the bell will ring for them to leave. Along with the lack of love for school that most students have they start to stop caring about school altogether. School becomes something that they have to do in order to move on to something else, rather than taking the opportunity to try to learn something new. I think as teachers we can help students begin to enjoy school and to become more interested in what they are learning. These are a collection of things that I have heard from a number of teachers that I have worked with and some of the professors that I had in college. Enjoy!

Hands on Learning

The most common vision that people seem to have when they think about a school is classroom after classroom of students sitting in neat rows of desks, and taking notes as the teacher stands at the front of the classroom and talks. Personally, I don’t know many children that will take those notes home and read over them until they have learned the material. Hands on Learning means that we should let students participate in their learning. This might be through experiments or any activities where the students can actively participate in the lesson that is being taught.

Outdoor Learning

Students spend so much time inside, whether at home or at school. Teachers can expand their classrooms to the outdoors. I know several schools that have outdoor classrooms that are hardly ever used, but if a resource is available and open to students then they should be put to a positive use. If there are any activities that will get students out of their regular desk that they sit in every day for hours, then why not let them enjoy a few minutes doing something different.

Teaching to the Students

Many times you will hear teachers say that they have to teach to the state standardized testing. In college all of my teachers and professors would lecture us on how wrong this was and how we shouldn’t do it, so why should we still do it. We can teach students the test material but use information that will interest them. Find out from students what they like to do outside of school and then use those things that the students like to teach the material that has to be taught.

These are just a couple of things that I have heard of or experienced over the years and I think students truly enjoy just doing something different from the average day to day lessons. Students will enjoy pretty much anything that actually makes them think “outside-the-box” rather then just listening to someone else lecture them all day long. Well hopefully this will someone, have a great day!