Tuesday, November 05, 2013

teaching materials - don't be afraid

I always encourage myself to look at simple things around me and my pupils as something special to use in my teaching and learning activities. I know that fancy and colourful materials can attract pupils' attention but sometimes if you use simple things around you, this will develop creativity in you and in your pupils. 

I think when teaching primary school children, you need to add some kind of excitement in your teaching. For example, how about when using a simple pen and plain paper, you called them  a "magic pen and paper" and tell them that the pen can help them find the answer. That simple pen and paper suddenly can be seen as something different and the value you add to that pen and paper changes the perceptions of your pupils! 

This is about adding eagerness and creativity to your pupils. I always try to relate things that I do everyday or I buy everyday and relate them to my pupils to use them in the classroom. Plastic bags, bottles, shoes or whatever else is around us are teaching materials if we know how to manipulate them to be useful. Once you can do this, you are also teaching your pupils to look at objects around them differently. Probably the things that you thought were just rubbish can be something that can teach them mathematics, or science or probably just a trigger of the learning process.

PS: look at stuff around you differently and celebrate!

10 comments:

  1. could agree with you more?

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  2. Agree!! Thanks for sharing. Im not a teacher but I am mother. So this help me lots. =)

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    1. oh nice! good to know that u read this blog ;) thank u

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  3. Hey check my bolg livingeyes.blogspot.com

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  4. Apis,
    Welcome home (hope it is not too late to wish you so). Great to have your old self back, the teacher.

    Call this creative thinking. Hey...add one more bottle and we can have a hand of ten-pin bowling, and kids just love this game of 'build and destroy'. Teach them to count too, competitively.

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Superb! ;)