Our sagging economy has made many educational opportunities for our youth disappear. Schools are ordered to cut back spending, busing and extra curricular activities, convocational programs and field trips. The budgets have been spent and money is tight for anything other than conventional classroom curriculum. The hope is that all of these cutbacks will end just as quickly as they began so that teachers can offer their students this next year what their students have been exposed to in the recent past. Educators are frustrated at the constraints put on them do maintain high standards of learning and yet introduce diversity while the emphasis is on technology in the classroom utilizing the latest mathematical formulas and scientific evaluations.
There is a a solution to some of these issues by bringing visually stimulating hands on materials into the classroom. Educational kits specific to a number of subjects can often substitute for going to a museum or science center. The time spent getting kids on buses and herding them into the galleries is time wasted and time that could be spent working with a series of kits that provide complete instructions, models to work with, activities that stimulate thought and excitement for learning. There are kits that compliment science classes, social studies, geology, botany and matematics for elementary grade students. Each kit may contain a number of stimulating games, research activities, labeled research pads, or even complete sets of clothing, books and other suggestions for hands on activities related to the invidivual topic.
These can often be purchased at group rates for entire classrooms or as a unit that is to be used as an example for the entire class. When students get to a museum, they often have been told to keep their hands off and are roped off from many exhibits and thus the interaction with them is quite limited. Whereas bringing kits into the classroom that can be used to allow the student to create something from start to finish offers the students the opportunity to feel a genuine part of the subject. Often these kits combine mathematical and problem solving opportunities with an introduction to science or a social science.
Students react when they can put fossils into specific categories and have labels to identify what they are and where they came from as well as how old they are. This can stimulate further study and even influence them to go out on their own to search for more and create their own science project. There are kits that offer hands on learning opportunites for students to understand other cultures either from the past or from around the world. These kits often have tabletop models of dwellings, figurines or dolls which show fashion for everyday dress or ceremony, include an activity that the student needs to complete and items to offer a indepth look at a particular subject through visual and hands on closeup examination of such items as apparel, items made from indigineous resources, etc.
Problems arise in educating our students when we deprive them of opportunities for extended learning beyond the standard classroom practices. The economy is driving the direction of everything including how we handle educational opportunities. Educational kits can also be used in times when the econmy is recovering and offered as an introduction or a follow-up to a visit to a museum or from a visiting expert in a specific subject.
There are a number of educational kits and crafts available today from
http://www.craftinghistory.comThese kits range from science and geology to social sciences and history. The kits have been designed based on educational presentations made in classrooms all over the Midwest for the past three decades. They range in price from around $12 to $100 depending on the subject, size and content. There are individual craft projects that can be purchased singly or in bulk for use in large classrooms and youth group organizations.
Don't let the downturn in the economy deprive your child or your students of special activities in education. Go to Crafting History and check out their numerous resources, books, crafts and Educational Kits.
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