This research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of hands-on and minds-on activities on ninth grade students' achievement in and attitudes towards simple electric circuits. The study was conducted with 130 students, 70 of which were assigned as experimental group and instructed by hands-on/minds-on activities, while the 60 were assigned as control group and instructed by the traditional method. For the study, three measuring tools were used; the Physics Achievement Test, Physics Attitude Scale, and observation checklist. When the data were analyzed by using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), the results indicated that there was a significant difference between the means of the students' physics achievement in favor of the experimental group. However, the analyses failed to show any significant differences between the means of the students' attitudes towards simple electric circuits. The results of this study are important especially for developing countries that can not use expensive materials to make students physically active. (Contains 2 figures and 3 tables.)