Activity Based Learning

Activity based learning means children learn by doing — observing, collecting, sorting, measuring, interviewing, making and presenting. In EVS it is not one method among many; it is the method, because the subject's content is the environment itself and cannot be delivered by talk.

Why activity is essential in EVS

• The content lives outside the book, in the pond, the market and the children's homes.
• Primary children are in Piaget's concrete operational stage and reason from real objects.
• Activity gives non-readers and first-generation learners a way into the lesson.
• Skills such as observation, classification and questioning can only be practised, not told.
• NCF 2005 and NEP 2020 both make activity and experience the required primary pedagogy.

The main EVS activities

Planning an activity properly

1. Fix the learning purpose before the activity, not after it.
2. Prepare the material and the questions children will answer.
3. Let children work in small groups so everyone handles the material.
4. Insist on recording — a drawing, a table, a sentence.
5. Close with discussion in which children report and compare findings.
6. The discussion is where the learning is consolidated; an activity without it is only play.

Common failures

• The teacher does the activity while children watch.
• The activity is done but never discussed or recorded.
• Only the confident children handle the material.
• The conclusion is announced by the teacher before children have looked.

✗ Activity based learning means keeping children busy with craft work.  |  ✓ It means children construct understanding by doing, recording and discussing.

Frequently asked questions

What is activity based learning in EVS?

An approach in which children learn by observing, collecting, surveying, interviewing, experimenting and making, then recording and discussing what they found, rather than by listening to explanations from a textbook.

Why is activity essential rather than optional in EVS?

Because the content of EVS is the child's own environment, which cannot be delivered through talk, and because primary children reason from concrete experience. Skills like observation and classification can only be practised.

What must follow an EVS activity?

Recording and discussion. Children should record what they found in a drawing, table or sentence, and then report and compare findings in class. Without this the activity remains an experience but not learning.