After having a bit of a homeschool struggle, I discovered that my son was a kinesthetic leaner. I made a few simple changes to our regular school routine to better help him understand the concepts I was trying to teach him.
Here are a few tricks that I have learned so far.
- I try to turn everything into a game because it seems to keep his attention better. He sees it as a game; I see it as learning.
- I allow him to use any of the construction paper, index cards, printer paper, markers, dry erase boards, or anything else he may find in the house that catches his eye. This allows him to learn things on his own level, such as practicing his writing by making various store signs (Hardware, Books, Candy, Bank etc.) to hang up on every (yes, EVERY) door in the house. He sees it as playing; I see it as learning.
- I only have him work for about 15 minutes at a time on one thing, then either take a break or move on to something else.
- If he gets very antsy and is obviously not focused I give him a short break. It’s better to give him 5 minutes than to fight with him to keep at it. If he’s not focused I’m not going to get anything from him anyway. Period.
- I try not to focus so much on his form. If he writes better sitting on his knees rather than sitting up straight like a proper young child, so be it.
- I don’t give him busy work. He needs his time and energy focused on the areas that he currently struggles with, namely reading and phonics. Besides, he stays plenty busy enough.
What about you? Have you learned any tricks for teaching your kinesthetic learner?
We used myaudioschool.com for our kinesthetic learner. Loaded books onto an iPod and let him choose when to listen. As long as he could tell me what he’d listened to, and show comprehension of the book, I don’t think it mattered whether he read or listened. He wasn’t ready to read until almost 11, but then quickly caught up to grade level.
That’s an excellent idea! Thanks for commenting.
I remember my mom doing math drills while my brothers did jumping jacks. Sometimes you just gotta go what you gotta do!
That totally sounds like something my son would do! Yes, definitely whatever works! 🙂
Oh man, my daughter(5) is so not into sitting still. Focus? Haha! I am lucky to get her to sit for 5-10mins to do “school”. She says math is boring and out right refuses to do abc(writing or the like). So we make deals. She can cut, colour, paste anything she wants for one page of learning in any subject.
We do lots of outdoor adventures, nature learning(keep a nature jounal is a great way to track her interests and sligh way to get her to write :D). I basically try to follow her lead. Like at the moment she loves horses and use that to help her learn. Her older sister(10) is the complete opposite. So, it has made home learning difficult. Trying to balance myself between to different mind sets. I get frustrated often.
This is my struggle! I have a 12 yr old who is very hands on learning. So much so that he is more interesting in building something or watching a how-to than listening to mom. To sit down more than an hour to do the bookwork/worksheets… yeah right! My 3 yr old is very much interested in learning but as with most 3 yr olds, has the attention span of a pea. However, she has a similar learning style hands-on/visual. While I am more visual, it has been a challenge for me to relate. I live in a rural area with several other home schoolers, but there aren’t any support groups and there have been many a days, I question my sanity! While our school year this year has been more of an organic year, with learning about things through the kids current interests, I would prefer a more organized/structured schooling. We do live on a lot of acres, have all the farm stuff(animals, gardens, timber), when the oldest is quizzed by relatives about mainly math problems taught in public school, I get plenty of dirty looks. He can budget, figure out loan interest, understand the value of money, how to figure monthly feed rations, plan meals/grocery lists. He just doesn’t do figures well without a calculator. While his vocabulary has always been no less than 5 years above his grade level, he does not comprehend nouns/verbs/etc. Won’t even try. He spells great, writes beautifully, and can figure how many bushels of grain are in a semi load…he just doesn’t do the public school terminology. I am so very happy to have found this site, and grateful to know that my children aren’t trying to give their mom grey hair….they just learn differently than I do!