One of the keys to being a successful teacher is enhancing the ability of the students to learn---which usually occurs most successfully when the students are interacting with the class, as well as having fun. There are several activities that teachers and students can perform which promote learning. The activities can be performed on a variety of subject areas.
Germination
One of the most common classroom experiments---because it's easy and cheap---is a simple seed germination activity. The teacher provides a seed, container, and soil. Students plant the seed in the soil in the container. Over time, the seed will germinate, sprout and grow. The teacher can have children graph or record the seeds' growth patterns over time. To give the students something to take home, they can each be allotted an individual seed as well.
Brain Hemispheres
Learning about the brain can become an interactive activity. In general, one hemisphere of the brain is dominant, which can be tested with some basic activities. Ask children to wink, walk and write at the same time. Have them record which eye they wink, which foot they lead with, and which hand they write with. The dominant hemisphere of the brain will generally be the opposite to their answers, so if they write with their right hand, the person is usually left-brain dominant.
Density
Density can be made into an interactive activity within a classroom. All the teacher needs is an egg, salt, water, and a container. Under the concept of density, salt should alter the density of the water, allowing an egg to become less dense than the salt-water, while it is more dense than non-salted water; meaning it floats in one while sinking in the other. Fill half a container with water and salt. Then fill the rest of the container with non-salted water. If performed correctly, the egg should drop down through the non-salted water and begin to float as it hits the salted water.
Graphing
Graphing can be done with nearly anything. It simply needs numbers to go with a subject matter. One of the easiest graphing activities is to have the students create an animal out of construction paper. They can then categorize the animal based on its type, whether a mammal, amphibian, or reptile. The kids can then make a simple bar graph with the numbers pertaining to each category of animal. They can also take the numbers of animals within each category, divide them by the total number of animals all together and multiply by 100, which will generate a percentage. The students can then also make pie graphs out of their animal categories.
Tags: non-salted water, container with, dense than, each category, hemisphere brain, interactive activity
