Creative Teaching Activities for Kids While Volunteering Abroad

Volunteering as a teacher abroad is an exciting and rewarding experience, especially when working with young children. However, teaching in a foreign environment can come with challenges, such as language barriers, mixed-ability classrooms, and limited resources.

To ensure a fun and engaging learning experience, it’s essential to come up with creative activities that make lessons interactive and enjoyable. Here are some of the best creative teaching activities for kids while volunteering abroad.

1. Interactive Storytelling

Storytelling is a powerful way to engage children and improve their listening and comprehension skills. Instead of just reading a book, make the experience interactive:

• Use props and puppets to bring characters to life.
• Encourage kids to act out parts of the story.
• Pause and ask questions to check comprehension.
• Let children predict what happens next or create an alternative ending.
• Incorporate call-and-response techniques where children repeat key phrases.

If you don’t have books available, you can create your own simple stories based on local culture or experiences the children can relate to.

2. Sing and Learn

Songs and rhymes are excellent for teaching language, numbers, and daily phrases in an engaging way. Some teaching activities for kids include:

• Teaching the alphabet, numbers, and common phrases through catchy tunes.
• Using action songs to get kids moving (e.g., “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”).
• Encouraging children to create their own songs about what they’ve learned.
• Singing local folk songs in English and the native language to promote cultural exchange.

3. Arts and Crafts for Learning

Artistic activities allow children to express creativity while reinforcing lessons. Some engaging projects include:

• Drawing and colouring vocabulary words (e.g., animals, emotions, or objects).
• Creating flashcards for a game of Pictionary or memory matching.
• Making paper puppets to use in role-playing activities.
• Designing a class mural where children illustrate a story or a lesson.
• Crafting DIY educational tools like alphabet charts, counting beads, or storybooks.

These activities not only support learning but also provide children with hands-on projects to take home and share with their families. Try printing some flashcards out at home in preparation, in case the school is short in supplies.

4. Outdoor Learning Games

Not all lessons need to take place indoors. If you’re volunteering in a location with access to outdoor space, try incorporating movement-based activities:

• Scavenger hunts: Give children a list of words or pictures to find and name.
• Relay races: Combine running with learning by having kids answer questions before they can advance.
• Hopscotch spelling or math: Draw a hopscotch grid with letters or numbers and have kids jump to form words or solve math problems.
• Simon Says: Reinforce vocabulary by using commands like “Simon says touch your nose” or “Simon says jump three times.”

These games help children develop cognitive skills while staying active. Get the local coordinator to help you translate the rules!

5. Role-Playing and Drama

Acting out scenarios is a fantastic way for children to practice language skills and social interactions. Some ideas include:

• Pretend play: Set up a pretend restaurant, market, or classroom where kids practice dialogue.
• Dramatic retellings: Have children act out stories you’ve read together.
• Charades: A great way to reinforce vocabulary by having kids act out words for others to guess.
• Puppet theatre: Let children create their own puppet show using handmade puppets or sock puppets.

Role-playing helps build confidence and encourages children to use their imagination.

6. Hands-On Science and Nature Activities

Even in low-resource classrooms, simple science experiments and nature-based activities can be engaging and educational:

• Growing plants: Teach children about nature by planting seeds and tracking their growth.
• Shadow tracing: Use the sun to trace shadows and discuss how light works.
• Simple water experiments: Teach concepts like floating and sinking using everyday objects.
• Bug and leaf identification: If teaching in a rural area, explore nature by identifying insects and plants.

These activities introduce scientific thinking in a fun and accessible way. Try and buy supplies once in the country to help support local businesses.

7. Cultural Exchange Activities

Since volunteering abroad is a two-way exchange, incorporate activities that allow both you and the children to learn about each other’s cultures:

• Teach a dance from your home country and learn one from the local culture.
• Exchange traditional games from your country and the one you’re teaching in.
• Create a class cultural map where students add facts about their country and compare them with yours.
• Share simple recipes and discuss favourite foods from different cultures.

Cultural exchange helps broaden perspectives and create meaningful connections between volunteers and students.

8. Group Projects and Collaborative Learning

Encouraging teamwork through group projects fosters communication and cooperation skills. Some ideas include:

• Creating a class newspaper with students writing short articles or drawing pictures about their daily lives.
• Building a story together where each child adds a sentence to a growing narrative.
• Designing a community project like a recycling initiative or a classroom garden.
• Making a giant alphabet or number chart with contributions from all students.

Working together on projects gives children a sense of accomplishment and reinforces their learning.

9. DIY Learning Materials

If your volunteer placement has limited resources, get creative with homemade learning materials:

• Bottle cap letters: Write letters on bottle caps to form words.
• Cardboard puzzles: Create simple puzzles from cardboard for matching numbers or letters.
• Homemade bingo cards: Use vocabulary words or numbers for a fun learning game.
• Chalkboard games: If paper is scarce, use chalk to create word games or math problems on the ground.

Making use of available materials ensures a fun and engaging learning experience without needing expensive supplies.

10. Storytelling Through Drawing

For children who may struggle with language, storytelling through drawing is a fantastic way to develop communication skills:

• Ask students to draw a sequence of events and explain the story to the class.
• Have them illustrate a story you’ve told and share their interpretations.
• Let them create a comic strip with speech bubbles for dialogue.
• Play “draw and describe” where one child describes an object while another draws it.

This activity builds creativity and helps with vocabulary development.

Conclusion

Teaching children while volunteering abroad can be a deeply rewarding experience, especially when you incorporate creative teaching activities for kids. Whether through storytelling, music, outdoor games, or art projects, these activities make learning fun and interactive.

By using simple, resourceful methods, you can create a positive and lasting impact on the students you teach. The key is to be flexible, enthusiastic, and open to adapting your teaching style to fit the local environment and needs of the children.

If you’re preparing for a volunteer teaching trip, consider incorporating these activities into your lessons to foster a love of learning in your students. Happy teaching!