What Hands-On Learning Looks Like
At Friends Community School we embrace the truth that learning is actually a whole-body experience. “Hands-on learning” is usually the way we describe our approach, but what does that look like in practice? Tess Ross Callahan, one of our 3/4 teachers offers us a visual tour of some of the hands-on learning taking place in her classroom.
After last year in which so much learning took place online, Tess says, “I feel newly aware of the privilege of in-person learning, and hungry to have children moving, touching, and interacting with learning as much as possible.” Here are some examples of what that looks like:
Students learn about coordinating conjunctions by moving around independent clauses and linking them with a FANBOYS card.
Students learn about area by filling in the outlines of a shape with color tiles.
Students practice collaboration by building bridges (that sometimes fall).
Students learn about transition words by making “cootie catchers” and quizzing each other on sentence puzzles.
Students learn about data representation by creating their own surveys and turning the results into a bar graph.
As Tess explains, “This year is all about the tactile, whenever we can make it that way!”
Located in College Park, MD, Friends Community School is a progressive Quaker K-8 day school, founded on the belief that every child is a valued member of our community. We offer a challenging curriculum imbued with strong values of equality, integrity, community, environmental stewardship, simplicity and peaceful conflict resolution, rooted in our Quaker heritage.
Friends Community School
5901 Westchester Park Drive
College Park, Maryland 20740
301-441-2100
5901 Westchester Park Drive
College Park, Maryland 20740
301-441-2100
