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How to Apply Gardner's Intelligences With Preschool Students

The classroom environment and activities a teacher creates play important roles in helping students of all intelligences learn. Dr. Howard Gardner, a Harvard psychologist and education professor, has suggested seven different types of intelligences to which an educator should teach. These intelligences are visual-spatial (student visualizes and understands spatial dimensions), bodily-kinesthetic (student effectively uses the body), musical (student uses sound and rhythm), interpersonal (student is empathetic and interacts well with others), intrapersonal (student has a strong understanding of self and works best independently), linguistic (student effectively uses spoken and written words) and logical-mathematical (student has a high reasoning ability and thinks abstractly). A preschool classroom provides ample opportunities to teach to all types of intelligences.

Instructions

- 1
  Organize your classroom with stations. There should be a station for art, music, dramatic play, reading, building and math manipulatives. These stations target visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences.
- 2
  Label each station and each individual toy bin with a word and a picture. These labels target both visual-spatial and linguistic intelligences.
- 3
  Implement a classroom schedule that allows for large group, small group and individual activities. Provide students with a time when they can choose the station in which they want to work. Free-choice time will target both interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences.
- 4
  Facilitate activities, based on your lessons, at each station on a daily basis. For example, when teaching letters and numbers, students can draw pictures, sing songs, build objects or read books with the letter or number you are teaching.

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