Using the home environment and the surroundings
The context of having a lesson from home of some other place might mean that students have access to all that an apartment or a house have to offer, but at the same time might mean that they have to share spaces with other family members and/or sit in front of the computer on a more or less suitable place.
In this section, we will briefly explore how you can make use of what students have around them, in order to link them with what you are teaching.
“In a ‘normal’ classroom, I would be using robotics kits and hands-on activities; while at home, I am still having kids continue to get hands-on, but work on basic skills such as drawing to get better at conveying an idea in a picture, or building challenges in which students pick what they get to work on and create projects with whatever materials they have available at home.”, says Bruce Nelson, Robotics & Design teacher at Indian Creek Elementary, USA, and LEGO Education Master Educator.
If you ask students if they have spaghetti at home, and with a spaghetti stick they measure the perimeter of a room, its height, the dimensions some piece of furniture has, you can have a whole lesson about measurements and calculations. Thus, you can link the exploration of the room with a geometry lesson, and further with an arts lesson (from arranging and painting some objects in a corner, to interior design input).
But inspiration can come from 2 directions:
You think of the subject you need to teach, then think about what students can use from their home environment.
You think of what the home environment contains, and you link it with school subjects.
Let’s explore some ideas related to how you can use some spaces in the house:
1. The kitchen is a lab. There you can arrange cooking lessons, and link them with chemistry, physics, technology.
2. Create a green corner. Small experiments, but also creating a corner with plants, can support students in exploring biology, health, nutrition, environmental education and other science subjects.
3. Choose a wellbeing area: A place where the student can relax, surrounded by inspirational objects and books, can lead to introducing lessons of reading, foreign languages, sports, arts, and other personal development subjects.
4. The toy shop: students can create a corner with toys they want to keep, exchange, sell. It can start a lesson on financial education, math, or storytelling.
5. The home orchestra: students can explore the way different objects sound (for example, a spoon hitting a cup), or build different musical instruments. You can use this type of activity for physics, music, technology, even chemistry.
6. History of the house: from the year the house was built, to artefacts and objects that their parents have in the house, very interesting discussions can be had with the students. You can touch history, architecture, storytelling, language, social education.
7. Personal interests corner: students can have different passions, more or less related to technology. An occasion in which they can display their personal interests’ corner and present their hobbies, with you keeping an open mind and being genuinely curious about them, can bring not only new discussion topics, but also a higher level of trust between you and students.
Reflection time
Link the subject(s) you teach with new materials and environments students can make use of while being at home - can you think of new challenges, exercises, learning opportunities?
