I used to tell my students, the instruments tell you where the aircraft has been, looking outside you tell the aircraft where it's going.. At which point, I would start covering instruments, power performance yadda yadda, m as said before, the student seeing they can nail the circuit, , climb, descend etc without instruments results in a massive confidence boost.

I did my original training in gliders and it was SOP to cover instruments during training in the circuit, and thermaling now that I come to think of it.

Flying by Attitude in circuit work
 

It is a great idea and in the olden days was used a lot. The outside air temperature gauge on the windscreen showed your height in the circuit, if you needed it.

Tmb

It's great fun estimating speeds and heights in the circuit before uncovering the instrument briefly to see who is the 'winner'. Students love it. Also, most students don't cotton on that they can simply estimate height based on the other aircraft in the pattern :E

^ Sure is a lot of fun for both the instructor n student.

Currently I instruct on a c172 fitted with G1000. When teaching circuits I use yellow sticky notes to cover up AH, Balance, HSI, & Tacho. All the student gets is airspeed & altimeter.

When teaching the base leg I say the only real instrument required (if any) is the airspeed indicator. Looking at the r/w will tell you everything else, ie- the profile, & if tracking 90'deg or not. It is then simply a case of using ones ear to listen for power changes as required to maintain the profile :ok:

Approaching the flare I sometimes cover up the entire instrument panel forcing the student to look down the r/w and float the a/c.