Kinesthetic+Activities

Kinesthetic activities: **
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It is said that all the senses come into play during the learning process. Currently, linguistic teaching fills the classroom; with lectures, reading and writing. However, some learners may attain knowledge in a nonlinguistic manner. The students should express what they have learned with kinesthetic activities or physical model. Teachers should encourage their student to make nonlinguistic representations of their thinking. Dramatizations, body movements, and dancing are a few ways for students to express their ideas in a kinesthetic way. For example, suppose you are lecturing to your class about wind. You as the teacher could explain to the students how it feels but yet that students may not attain the information. Nonlinguistic representation (kinesthetic activities) could assist you, as the teacher, to get the information across. By showing the students the way the wind feels, and how it moves objects creates a visual image. Having the students perform movements with their bodies of what they think that wind looks like, incorporates kinesthetic learning. Now, with hearing, seeing, and feeling the wind the student should ascertain the information that you have given them. When the student explains their movements, or models they are putting their thoughts into words. By doing this; it may lead to higher order thinking, which in turn leads to better understanding of the subject matter. The teacher should tap into this mode of learning to help his or her student benefit from all that learning has to offer.

Key Research Finding: ** · Learners acquire and store knowledge in two primary ways: linguistic (by reading or hearing lectures), and nonlinguistic (kinesthetic or whole-body modes, visual imagery, and so forth). The more students use both forms of representing knowledge, the better they are to think about and recall what they have learned (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). · Visual representations help students recognize how related topics connect (NCTM, 2000). · Kinesthetic Learners require body movements and action for optimal results. (Linksman 2007)

Implementing kinesthetic activities into the lesson: **  These are all successful ways of incorporating some form of kinesthetic activity into the classroom setting.
 * Use activities that get the learners up and moving.
 * Play music during some activities.
 * Ask the students to act out what has been lectured on.
 * Have students model an activity that is being taught
 * Give frequent stretch breaks (brain breaks).This allows the students to get up and move around and process what they have just learned.
 * Provide Play-Dough or clay to give them something to do with their hands. Ask them to construct a model of the lesson that is being lectured.
 * Guide learners through a visualization of complex tasks.