Sunday, June 15, 2014

Make Learning Fun

by Renee Tonquest
Cluster Specialist
Health Science

Here are several different ideas you can incorporate in your health science classroom.  These strategies can help engage your students and make your lessons more interesting and fun. 

Boards/Slates: Have all the students look up a specific answer for understanding. You can add the element of speed and you may want to put them on teams. It is great as a review before a test.

Clay:  Can be used to teach body planes and regions. 

Sticky blocks: Can be used to build a model or are also great to use in  communication and observation. Obtain several blocks of the same size. Have the students sit back-to-back. One student will have a picture of the block object and the other student will have the blocks. Allow 2-3 minutes for the student with the picture to give instructions about how to build the object to the other student, who should try to build it based on those instructions.

Children’s books:  You can help the students learn using children’s books as a springboard.  For example Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox for listening skills, The Sneetches by Dr.Seuss for cultural diversity, or The Lorax by Dr.Seuss for environmental health

Flash cards: One of the best ways for students to study and practice new material.   

Thumbs up/thumbs down: A quick check for understanding that can be used at the beginning of class or during the middle of a lesson. 

Children’s games:   Simon Say’s, Hokey Pokey, and Concentration can be a lot of fun to use when reviewing body planes and terms.    

Ball Toss: A quick review game that helps keep students focused. Have students form a circle. Call out a student’s name and toss the ball to that student. Give either the definition or a term and have the student give the correct response. Then the student calls out a name and tosses the ball to another student and a different question is asked. Game continues until all students have been tossed the ball.  

Bingo: A fun game when used with vocabulary or term list. You can have the student’s make-up their own cards by putting a list of words or you can make up your own cards.  

Math warm-ups: As a daily warm-up, give the students a math problem.  Work the problem after the students have had a chance to do theirs.

Hot Potato: The person who is holding the ball has to give the correct term or definition.

Online fun: 
ToonDoo is a cool, comic-creating tool.  http://toondoo.com
Glogster EDU is an online platform for interactive, collaborative, digital learning.  http://edu.glogster.com/

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