Last Updated on October 9, 2023 by Editorial Team
You are probably a kinesthetic learner if you prefer to learn from listening, touching, and watching rather than reading from books and papers. Ensuring hand-eye coordination in the pedagogies can also be assistive in improving cognition and grasping abilities.
While looking for various activities and means to learn physically, Do you know that many daily-life reckoners and utilities actually have corporeal influence? Knowing their role in improving corporally, you can determine which of these needs to be focused on. Such practices can evidently be implemented by people of any age.
People often perceive bodily learning needs specialized activities and care to implement and learn. The examples stated below may bust such myths showing how routine activities that we go through can be proprioceptively supported, letting you comprehend what such learning precisely is.
Examples of kinesthetic learning style- These are indispensable to dig into!
1. Abacus

Abacus, as we know, is a reckoner with a combination of beads. Learners often touch, shift, and operate on these to make calculations, employing their fingers and feeling the numbers. Implementation of the abacus is clearly kinesthetic learning.
Nelvin R. Noolṅ[1], in his research, outlined that the learning styles of tactile and kinesthetic learners were addressed with the use of the Abacus. Thus the improvised abacus promotes cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning. The results of this study verified the positive effects of manipulative materials on student achievement in mathematics.
2. Play-acting
Being probably the next level of interactive simulations, play-acting is a practice of recreating a possible scenario and rehearsing accordingly in a group. Say, a new marketing manager can create a play-acting with a peer manager establishing a customer-executive scenario.
Such role-plays explore probable challenges that can arise, leading to ameliorated self-esteem and strength to face people. Not only on the professional level, but play-acting can also be fitting to students as well. Learners can infer the viewpoint of opposing candidates apart from learning interaction skills.
3. Models
Prototypes are often evident in schools and workplaces. These are implemented to either edify about it to the learners or to demonstrate a preliminary idea. Despite varying applications, such models provide a clear idea of how it looks.
While some can be computer-simulated, some can be real-life samples ensuring touch and feel. For instance, IC engine models in colleges facilitate students to feel and observe it in detail, thus decreasing it better kinesthetically. Not only this, but an artificial skeleton in the biology labs is also an admired exemplar.
4. Puzzles

Puzzles stimulate brainstorming in kids and students to arrange them in the right order. May it be picture-based, crossword, or related to math, puzzles often stipulate learners arrange them to form the right image or equation. These assist in improved cognition by ensuring kinesthetic learning, as the aspirant uses hands and eyes to hold and place pieces meaningfully.
Further, solving puzzles can improve memory, problem-solving skills, and visual-spatial memory too. Joining pieces can strengthen the connection in the brain as it allows trial and error, drastically leading to finer critical thinking abilities. Attention to detail is an additional handout.
5. Drawing Materials

Drawings and pictorial presentations on whiteboards give out decent visual cues. But when an aspirant draws a figure on the board or paper engaging hands and all senses, the learning gets physical. The muscle memory adds up to better grasp the shape and dimensions. Say a student draws a figure of a heart, they implicitly grasp the size of arteries, veins, and valves with respect to the entire picture.
This makes retaining these attributes easy later when needed. Drawing is a mix of semantic, visual, and kinesthetic learning, where comprehension accounts for semantics, picture accounts for visuals, and hand movement accounts for proprioceptive learning.
6. Globes and Maps

A globe is a down-scaled three-dimensional model of Earth demonstrating various locations on it accurately on a sphere. Globes presented on a plain sheet of paper make a Map. These are demonstrations of locations showing their demographics, which often lets the aspirant retain places with ease compared to a piece of text description.
Further, the tilt of the planet and its poles are also visually presented, which can be touched, and rotated for better comprehension. Globes and maps can be great kinesthetic learning tools in subjects like Geography.
7. Micro Lessons
By definition, Micro Lessons are video snippets that generally last not more than 5 minutes in length. The Small video lesson format became popular with online classes. It is divergent because it carries only the crucial part of the chapter that the student needs to discern.
Practice at a personal level can take over the next steps of learning. Not only for students, but these are also evident for professionals. Such video snippets can fit the lecture style encouraging kinesthetic exercise later. Micro lessons also come in audio format. Such content can be donut-clearing sources for researchers and professionals.
8. Modeling clay

Clay Modeling is an appealing way to encourage children to communicate their imagination. Ensuring any color and shape, they can create almost anything with proper planning. Apart from improving motor skills, this can be a significant kinesthetic activity too.
Little ones can mold the dough into letters, alphabets, or any form, ensuring physical inference of attributes. Apart from hand-eye coordination, such activities can also encourage trial and error and aid in fine motor skills, ensuring play-based learning.
9. Interactive Simulations
If a software employee is introduced to a new function or concept, they are encouraged to apply it to every scenario to ensure pragmatic practice. This can evidently give better results than just listening to a video lecture frequently.
Not only this, a live demonstration of a machine by a new employee can make him understand the operation better than classroom learning. Putting the self into the scenario and learning to be effective and kinesthetic learning here ensures the same.
10. Documents that Interact
Promotional and learning documents have been turning interactive to communicate with the reader better. The traditional paper-based presentation has evolved with attributes like Slides, Takeaways, small tasks, prototype simulations, and interactive music. They provide a strong visual appeal to the readers, ensuring kinesthetics.
Further, altering such documents also leads to a great corporeal practice. Such formats of files became generic with the advent of online schooling. Occasionally, such interactive documents are accompanied by visual presentation and images, enhancing engagement.
Making kinesthetic learning functional
Among four different learning styles, the Kinesthetic approach is often sensible. The above examples can prove the same. Nonetheless, aspirants can make the best use of such approaches by ensuring some simple tips.
- Focus on Pragmatic applications: In the classroom, in video lectures, or anywhere, the instructor often gives out examples of a notion before switching to another. Focus on those examples that are pragmatic and have real-life execution. This way, the learner can discern linked attributes at any time imagining that example.
- Make imaginary illustrations: The use of fingers can make learning intriguing. That being the case, aspirants may try drawing notions with their fingers in the open air as they contemplate.
- Design Games: Learners can try turning their lessons into games or incorporate studies into games. For instance, retaining information on flashcards and then accessing them is an appreciable idea for kinesthetic learning.
- Pictorial Notes: While listening to lectures and classes, students must often take notes to study later. To make it kinesthetic, note-taking can be transformed into a pictorial form. Say, the entire chapter can be represented on a single page in the form of a concept map for facile access later.
Concluding thoughts
Many individuals are often not aware of their learning style. Even after they comprehend a physical learning style, they may look for intriguing activities to learn. The above-mentioned examples prove how many daily-life routines in the home and workplace can have a kinesthetic aura in them. Mulling over these exemplars can make you aware of how corporeal activities look and work so that you may choose appropriate picks for you later.
References
- Effectiveness of an Improvised Abacus in Teaching Addition of Integers. (2012). Nelvin R. Nool.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,