Measuring Can Be Fun too

Children love to learn and they are very creative enough to transform their play into a learning experience. Learning need not be confined to worksheets and abstract concepts. When left alone, they could even come up with their own creative idea and invent their own learning method. The only thing that I learnt that I need as an educator is to keep restrain. I had to be patient enough to let ideas blossom naturally by giving time, space, freedom and by providing a loving and non interfering environment for him to unleash his creativity. S loves to play with Jenga blocks. You could believe what I am saying by looking at the pictures. 

One fine day, after playing with the blocks for some time, he was able to figure out that the Jenga blocks could be used as a tool to measure things at home. He measured as many objects as he could using the Jenga blocks and prepared a report that gave details about the length of each object that he measured. It was amazing to read the report he prepared in a quick manner that read "My noddy car is 2 Jenga blocks long. My favourite book is 3 Jenga blocks long. Our centre table is 11 Jenga blocks long..." I noticed that he generally writes slowly but the time he took to prepare this report was too very fast and I could not believe the speed with which he did that.

That leaves me with - Children can develop their own lesson plans. Knowledge and concepts amassed through such self directed learning is huge and lasts for ever because it is actually original. And that is so much fun for them too.

Enjoy learning and sharing.