Children love to roll clay and often use it during their playtime. However, clay can be used as a teaching tool as well. Young students who are learning the alphabet can roll out strips of clay and then form them to match a letter of the alphabet. Pair this with writing the letter down on a sheet of paper and the students are well on their way to reading and writing.
Mathematics can sometimes be a tedious subject for students. However, through the use of kinesthetic movement, mathematics can feel like playtime. For young students learning shapes, have them use their fingers, arms or legs to form simple shapes. Use peg boards with elastic bands and have them stretch the bands and form different shapes. To help older students learn multiplication or division, get them physically involved in a mathematic equation. For example, pair two students on one side of the room and two students on the other side. Have the rest of the class figure out what the answer is to two times two.
Science teachers have an advantage of using kinesthetic teaching methods when they present lessons requiring projects. However, projects and movement can be adapted to fit any academic subject. During reading class, students can read a story, discuss the plot and characters, and then act out a scene from the story as a whole group lesson. For individual grading purposes, the students can then create a diorama of their favorite scene in the story.
Although many classrooms are arranged so that the teacher lectures in the front of the room while the students sit in their desks set in rows, changing the physical structure of the classroom might be necessary to allow for kinesthetic movement. By creating learning centers in the classroom, the teacher incorporates movement into each lesson because the students are required to move from center to center. The movement gives them time to break, regroup, transition and release any constrained energy they might have built while sitting down.