In the upper grades science is taught largely through hands-on experimentation and demonstration. Adults learn primarily through concepts and abstract ideas. For young children, however, abstraction is an inappropriate teaching method which confuses a child's growing understanding of the world. Adults often fail to realize how differently a child receives and integrates knowledge . T he class is a social unit, not just a series of individuals.
Children learn a great deal from each other as well as from the teacher.
Sometimes the teacher acts almost like an orchestra conductor, seeing that the whole class moves forward so that everyone benefits. T he approach used to teach a given subject and its timing are as important as the content of the teaching. For example, geography is taught starting locally and then spreading to the rest of the world. This mirrors a child's scale of view from the local to the universal. The study of history begins with the oldest stories of humanity and works toward the present.