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Students Reflect on What Makes School Fun
Learning should be fun. It should challenge students, pique their curiosity, occasionally make them laugh, and above all, learning should spark joy. To discover more about what makes learning joyful, we went straight to the source: students! Our Joy of Learning series celebrates the perspectives, stories, and voices of PreK-12 learners. You can find our latest interviews here:
We recently had the opportunity to sit down with a few of the students from our video series to chat with them more about their learning journeys. In this blog, we go behind the scenes with Kaydence, a 4th grader, Kinsely, a 6th grader, and Ronan, a 3rd grader.
What’s your favorite thing about your teacher this year?
Kaydence: I like my teacher because she’s very nice and confident. And fun!
What does she do that’s fun?
Kaydence: Well, when we’re doing math, sometimes we’ll do a color-by-number to make math more fun.
Kinsely: I like my teacher because he’s really funny and makes jokes in class. He’s entertaining.
Ronan: I like my teacher because he sometimes hands out candy and makes really funny faces.
What’s your favorite thing you’ve done so far in school this year?
Kinsely: My favorite thing that I’ve done in school is robotics, where you build robots and then do a competition.
Kaydence: My favorite thing that I’ve done in school is a project we did in school with a paper Croc. We read the book Holes and made different charms for each character. Tomorrow I’m doing a presentation about it! You have to describe each charm you made and how it represents your character.
Ronan: One of my favorite things I did in school was this biome project where you pick an animal and write all about it.
What animal did you pick?
Ronan: A lion!
Think back to any time in your whole life as a learner. Tell me about a time when you just felt really happy at school.
Kinsely: A time I felt really happy was in third grade because we got to make these slide shows and present them in front of the class. They were on different subjects, like different foods or different historical figures. After we did our presentation we got two pieces of candy!
What made that so fun?
Kinsely: It was probably because I got to present it.
Kaydence: One of my favorite things that happened that made me really happy is in second, third, and fourth grade I get to read to the classes of teachers that I’ve had. It’s fun reading to my old teachers’ classes. I really like to do it because I get to read to younger people, and I was once in their class!
Ronan: One thing that happened that I liked last year was when we had a water balloon fight and I got very wet.
Can you remember a time when you laughed a lot at school?
Kaydence: I probably laughed a lot in school in third grade because my teacher made a lot of funny jokes.
Ronan: One thing that happened in school in first grade is when I was doing math and one of my friends pulled a sock out of their jacket.
Why do you think that school is so important?
Kinsely: School is important because you get to learn about things you need in the real world, because you have to pay the water bill and get a job and things like that.
Kaydence: School is important because you have to learn academically and without school nobody would know what to do.
What do you hope to learn for the rest of the school year?
Kaydence: I’m hoping to learn about animals.
Ronan: I’m hoping to learn for the rest of the school year multiplication.
Kinsely: I’m hoping to learn more about ancient Greece.
Interesting! Do you all like to read?
All: Yes!!
What’s your favorite book?
Kinsely: My favorite book is called Percy Jackson and it’s about ancient Greek Gods.
Kaydence: My favorite book is called Goddess Girls. It’s about gods too but it’s more like a fantasy. I like fantasy, chapter books, graphic novels, and stuff like that.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Kaydence: I want to be a singer!
Kinsely: I want to be a marine biologist.
Ronan: I want to be a soccer player.
What do you do in school that will help you be what you want to be?
Kaydence: I’m in choir!
Kinsely: We’re learning about living organisms in science, so I think that will help me.
Ronan: What will help me will probably be P.E.
What advice would you give to a kid that didn’t like school very much?
Kaydence: I probably would give them the advice that whatever they want to be when they grow up, school will help them. They should keep doing what they love and not give up. School will get more interesting.
Kinsely: I would say you need it to grow your brain and grow academically. You need it to grow up and get a job and pay for things.
Ronan: I would say if you keep pushing, you might be able to like school more.
If you could give all the teachers at your school advice on how to be a better teacher, what would you tell them to do?
Kaydence: I would say that if there are kids that don’t like school that much, make it fun for them and ask them what they like to do. Let’s say they like music. Mix music with math or something like that! Like songs to remember multiplication.
Kinsely: I would say the same as Kaydence, and to be more understanding when students have something going on.
What if you were the principal for the day? What would students do all day?
Kaydence: I would probably talk to the actual principal and ask her teacher. We actually have that at our school! We have a job-a-thon, and whoever raises the most money at the school gets to be the principal and whoever raises the most money in the class gets to be teacher.
Kinsely: I would probably for the first part of the day have an electronics party. Then the rest we would have recess, then we would watch a movie. Then we’d have lunch, and then we’d play games as a class.
Ronan: Umm…. Lionel Messi comes to school. [giggling]
Oh, he would come to your class? But he only hangs out with you and everyone else has to do math all day, is that it?
Kaydence: That is a very Ronan thing to say!
For more student voices, read:
