The Importance of Hands-On Learning Experiences

If you’re currently considering giving your child a private education, likely one of your motivating factors is to be able to provide your child with a hands-on learning experience.

Particularly in the early years of your child’s education, there is no better substitute for learning than lessons that require students to use both their hands and their minds. Through these hands-on learning experiences, students become more engaged and focused on the lesson at hand. Studies have shown that even students with a tendency to fidget are able to better engage when they are required to move their hands.

Naturally, hands-on learning experiences will highly engage students that are tactile or kinesthetic learners. However, hands-on experiences also allow auditory learners to talk about what they’re doing, visual learners to see what everyone is creating, and social learners to spend time in small group conversation. All in all, a hands-on learning approach can benefit students of all strengths.

Creative hands-on learning experiences frequently involve the use of manipulatives which provide students with physical tangible examples to make visual learning connections. Scissors, markers, and glue also contribute to the positive development of fine motor skills in children. These are all essential skills that students will rely on for the rest of their lives, so opportunities to practice these skills will only enhance them.

With a private education, you will be able to put your child in a smaller classroom setting with a lower student-to-teacher ratio. The smaller classroom settings allow for more hands-on learning to take place, which ultimately results in engaged students that are able to actively participate in the lesson.

We strongly believe in providing our students with a hands-on learning experience at St. Barnabas Episcopal School, and this is very apparent to anyone that simply takes a tour of our school.

A great example of a hands-on learning experience at St. Barnabas is our eighth grade students that have taken what they have learned about plant structure and growth in Biology and applied it to the real world by creating a garden. Each student is responsible for taking a specific vegetable, fruit, or herb and bringing it through the germination stage to transferring the plant to the raised bed or trough. For more about this incredible hands-on learning experience that our eighth grade Biology students are participating in, please visit the website that they created to track the different plant life that they are working with.

Another example of hands-on learning at St. Barnabas is our second grade students were recently tasked to give a presentation about their ideal outdoor classroom. They shared their methods for measuring space, drew a map of the ideal classroom, and included drawings of what the outdoor classroom would look like. Details such as a buddy bench, compost area, covered pavilion, and wind sculptures made the list for the ideal outdoor classroom. The students were also able to benefit by learning from Sandra Lanier, an expert in hydroponic gardens.

If a hands-on learning experience is important to you and your child, we encourage you to look further into a private education at St. Barnabas Episcopal School. Please contact us to learn more about what makes our school so unique. Our mission is to challenge each student in a supportive environment that promotes academic excellence, sound moral values, and high self-esteem within a framework of God’s love.

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386-734-3005