It’s back to school time (if you haven’t been schooling all summer)! No doubt about it, many of us have bought some workbooks, full of blank worksheets ready to be filled out. I can just smell that new workbook smell right now, can’t you? 🙂
While I use worksheets in our schooling, I’m not a big fan of them. I much prefer hands-on activities (and so do my kids). But as children age (moving past the younger grades), workbooks and worksheets tend to take a more prominent place in their learning. Why is that? Because worksheets make for great independent work while you’re teaching other students. But using too many worksheets can make schoolwork one-dimensional and on the boring side. The good news is that you can actually make many kinds of worksheets hands-on and fun, so don’t throw out your workbooks just yet!
Here’s how I did it just the other day:
- I found a plain, old worksheet (I chose a fraction matching sheet out of an old workbook someone gave me) that had skills that my son needed to work on.
- I cut out the pictures/text from the page. If you want to re-use the page or the contents on the back, make sure you run a copy of the page first.
- I gathered a stack of index cards, glued the pictures on, and wrote the corresponding fractions (found on the worksheet). You may want to laminate all the pieces for durability.
- My son (2nd grade) used it as a simple fraction matching activity.
It’s that simple!
Hands-On Activities can be:
- used over and over again ~ for the same child as independent work or with multiple children. With my fraction matching “game”, he can re-match these same pictures and fractions again tomorrow as independent work.
- adapted or modified easier than a worksheet. For example, we could play concentration with the pieces by flipping them face down. Instead of asking him to match the pictures and the fractions on the index cards, I could leave the index cards completely out of the mix. He would look at the pictures and then write the fractions on a dry erase board. I could also take it step further and ask him to look at just the fractions on the index cards and draw his own fraction pictures. (It’s hard to modify a worksheet like that!)
- more fun and memorable for the child (and don’t we all want that?).
Of course, one drawback to making your worksheets more hands-on is that it takes a little more time to prep than simply opening that workbook. (It took me about 10 minutes to prep this activity.) But consider this ~ If I left this particular fraction sheet as just a worksheet, my son would have done it one time and in only one way. By making it hands-on, I now have four (or more) activities he can do with the same game pieces. Talk about bang for your buck! So, take a good look at those blank workbook pages. There may just be more there than meets the eye.
Caroline says
Becky, GREAT ideas! For some kids, changing worksheets in ways like this help them understand the material in more concrete ways, too. Thanks for sharing!
Tiffany says
I love this idea! Now if I can get creative with some of my daughters phonics and reading worksheets! She’s very hands on but our curriculum is not. :/ I do add games, art and activities each day but her workbooks r plain. Thanks!