Middle school is such a transformational period. If you have ever watched the movie Inside Out you got a little glimpse of what is happening in a middle school brain. The world of the middle school brain is moving from concrete thinking to abstract but they are not there yet. Many people move middle schoolers to concrete activities too fast and forget the importance of hand on learning. 

Middle schoolers are transforming, but they are not fully at the level of learning like a high-schooler. However, sometimes it seems like we try to throw them into the type of activities that high schoolers are doing. This often means fewer hands-on activities and more discussion-based learning. However, the importance of hands on learning activities for middle school cannot be stressed enough. I will outline why and suggest some great activities.

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Why Middle Schoolers Still need Hands on Activities

The short answer to this question is that middle schoolers are still concrete thinkers. They have not developed the ability to actually think in abstract realms yet. This ability does not start forming until high-school. Therefore, if middle schoolers are unable to see something in its concrete form then they will not be able to actually relate to it and it will not stick in their head.

This means that hands on projects are invaluable to middle schoolers. They may be able to participate in the discussion, but they cannot do so until they see something concretely done. This is where hands on learning activities come it.

Truthfully, the importance of hands on learning is present for all grades. It is needed across the board. There just seems to be a significant drop off of these activities in middle school for realms other than science. Middle Schoolers need these hands on activities in all realms, not just the STEAM fields.

Why STEAM Activities are great for Middle School students? 

STEAM is an acronym that stands for science, technology, engineering, art, and math. It used to just be STEM which did not have the art component. There are so many fun STEAM activities for middle school students, and it really has thrived as a concept. It is amazing because all of STEAM is hands on projects. It has students building and testing things to see if they will actually work in real life experiments. When STEAM was created the creators had the importance of hands on learning on their minds. This is why they made STEAM the way it is. 

As amazing as STEAM is, and I have seen it completely open doors of learning for middle schoolers. The focus of STEAM is more in the science and engineering realms. This does not cover all realms of learning. History, English and the humanities are not even thought of and math is even more of an afterthought. Middle schoolers need to have STEAM type projects in all their subjects to be fully grasping what they need to.

Hands on Humanities Projects for Middle School. 

One of the areas that is severely lacking in hands on projects is the humanities. However, this does not have to be the case. To engage your middle-school students in the humanities try some of the projects listed below.

Grammar Escape Rooms

So escape rooms are a great hands on activity that students can do to learn and remember different grammar rules. Escape rooms for those of you who don’t know include a series of riddles that one has to solve in order to get out of the room. Well in the classroom you would not have the big elaborate set up of escaping a room but you would include riddles and codes that students would work in groups to figure out. You can make the codes and riddles cover the concepts that you are teaching in English class. You can grab a great parts of speech escape room here.

Staging Competitions for Middle Schoolers

Another thing that I have seen work for middle school students are competitions. Stage a series of competitions over the week called like the grammar games or something along that lines. Have students in groups and they are competing to get the most points over the week etc. Under this, you can have escape room style activities or one of my favorite things to do is to have students answer questions on the board but every person in the group has to take turns answering. They also have to do it the fastest and it becomes a relay. 

Reenacting The World of Books you are Reading About.

Another, great way to bring hands on learning activities into the humanities is to create activities that reenact the books that you are reading. If you are reading the hunger games have your students compete in little hunger games like games. Have them do camouflage art like Peeta or find a way to do some type of archery like Katniss. This will bring the students more into the book and help them understand the point of view of the characters better.

If you are reading a book about survival have them do survival tasks. This also will work well with historical reading. Try to reenact the historical times. This will make history more concrete for your middle schoolers and they will be much more likely to fall in love with it.

Get into the Theater

Drama and reading plays is such a big part of English. But instead of just reading Shakespeare or other plays have your students actually create a reenactment of the play to perform. It is really great also to bring these older plays into the 21st century. Have student update the plays as if they would be happening in a modern day world. This helps students relate the material to their own lives and they learn the concepts much better. Make sure that you have plenty of props that they can use in their plays.

You can also do this with history. I would not suggest updating the ideas for history, but they have to make a play about what was happening at that time. For example, if you are talking about elections maybe you stage some type of debate where students are debating the topics of that time.

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Hands on Math Activities for Middle Schoolers

So STEAM includes math but it does not seem to be the focus of it. However, that can be easily fixed. Have students measure the angles of ramps etc that they are building. Check distances that something went on physics projects and ask them to make proportionate distances. Have them test if similar figures will give the same result as their proportionate counterparts. This means they would actually have to build things to scale and solve proportions to know that the items are actually proportionate. It will help them with ratios and proportions, which is a big part of middle school math.

Another thing that you can do is after they test their STEAM project you can help them find the equations to actually graph the results. This can also teach them how to build, and read different types of graphs and what graphs may be needed for their research.

Math Centers for Middle School

Math centers seem to mostly be used with elementary level students but they can work great with middle school as well. These can include different games, riddles, tasks, etc. That fit with middle school standards. It would be great to have like 5 or 6 in your room and have students rotate from task to task over the course of your math class. These games can be so helpful for students and work with visual and kinesthetic skills. I have seen my students thrive through incorporating games into their learning.

Fun Hands on STEAM Activities for Middle School Students 

So there are so many great STEAM projects out there. So I am not going to spend much time on this area except to give you a list of some places to find great STEAM projects.

Green Kid Crafts– This is a subscription box that will deliver you a box with a bunch of great STEAM activities monthly or you can buy each box individually.

Kiwi Co Doddle and Tinker Crates 

Kiwi Co is another great subscription box company that has some awesome STEAM boxes. They have two types of boxes that are targeted towards middle schoolers. The first one is called their Doodle box. It is focused more on art and creativity. The next one is their tinker box which is focused on engineering. Some of the engineering projects are super awesome like making a working catapult or a claw to pick things up easily.

October STEM Projects– this is an awesome set of STEM projects for October from Teach Outside the Box. She has many other STEM projects as well.

STEM Team building activities – The Carly and Adam Blog have a whole list of great team building STEM activities for the beginning of the year. These are great to build collaboration among your students.

For more STEAM ideas and projects visit my Pinterest Activities Board

Take serious the Importance of hands-on learning

Middle schoolers need to have hands-on learning activities. The importance of hands-on learning is something that has been proven many times.  They will learn so much better if they have these activities and they need them in subjects other than science. So many times whole subjects have no hands-on material and we wonder why our kids are not getting it. Get hands-on and not only will they enjoy learning so much more they will actually understand it so much more.

If you enjoyed this article please consider sharing it so that others can benefit as well. A great way to do that is Pinterest.