Elementary and Primary Project Based Learning can be an enormous task for a teacher, and it involves a lot of research, planning, and materials. You always want to find projects your students will be interested in. Using PBL ideas taken from your curriculum or students’ ideas will help you really find PBL topics your students will enjoy and really dive deep into!
Project based learning has increased student engagement, critical thinking skills, and problem solving skills. Teachers are often looking for ideas for project based learning for elementary students.
Have your students BEG for project based learning!
Project Based Learning Ideas For Elementary Students
Here are three ideas for project based learning for elementary classrooms. These PBL lessons are focused on math, but also incorporate so many social-emotional skills we hope our students will leave our classroom with. I have used these in my classroom, so I know that they are tried and tested for amazing learning!
Marble Run
Your students become engineers and have to learn about angles and geometry to create the most elaborate marble run they can! Students will love this engaging project as they put their math and geometry knowledge to the test with this project. This project can be completed by fast finishers or as an end of assessment group task. The best part is - you only need cardboard and tape to complete!
Wild Weather
Learning opportunities are available right in your backyard. When developing and deciding on project based learning ideas for elementary students, it is best to look for a topic that can easily be implemented into your curriculum or use your resources. Have your students predicting, recording, and graphing the weather in their local area.
Hotel Design
What student doesn’t have a dream home? Well, in this project you can get your students to design a new hotel for your city. Students love working out all of the items and rooms they will include. Indoor pools, rooms made of candy, the possibilities are endless. Can you see the excitement they will have?
You can use your math lessons for students to budget the cost of each room (beds, side stands, chairs etc). They then need to work out how many rooms they will allocate to singles, couples and families. Your students will be actively adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing without even realizing just how much math is involved. This real-world mini math and PBL project uses estimation and working with large numbers, budgeting and money.
Project Based Learning Ideas for Elementary Math
These PBL activities are just a few examples of project based learning ideas for elementary students which I have used in my elementary math classroom. I have watched students learn and grow so much by giving them the independence and ability to create their own learning experiences. Although they still have some parameters and guidelines they need to follow. There are so many other topics that you can easily turn into a PBL project for your students!
Are you interested in having all the student task outlines and worksheets for these tasks? Just print and you are ready to go. If so, visit the products page here.
Happy project based learning!