Learning to Move and Moving to Learn
Integrating Movement into the Everyday Curriculum to Promote Learning
A principal walks by the preschool classroom in her elementary school and hears a great uproar.
Concerned, she peers in. She’s not a big fan of play and worries that the children in Mr. Smith’s class are
not learning the things that will be assessed next year by the school district. What she sees when she looks
into the classroom shocks her. Every child is crawling around on the floor in a “crabwalk,” talking and
laughing. The teacher has finally gone too far, the principal thinks. Then she hears Mr. Smith call out,
“Seven!” The children quickly cluster around one of several hula hoops lying around the room. They
squeeze together, all trying to place themselves—at least an arm or a leg—into the ring that is marked in
the middle with a number seven. “You found it,” Mr. Smith says. “That’s seven. Let’s try another one.”
The children begin to crawl once more as another number is called. The principal quietly moves away,
rethinking, just a little, her previous position on play.
Teachers, administrators, and parents usually recognize the
physical benefits of motor play. What is less obvious is the
way that active play promotes learning. In the story above,
Mr. Smith is supporting his children’s academic success
through play. Engaging his children in movement promotes
attention, memory, and overall brain development. The
activity also teaches an important mathematical ability—
recognizing numerals.
Motor Play, Thinking, and Learning
Children’s motor abilities in preschool are related to their
intellectual skills when they reach elementary school. Why?
One theory is that movement in the early years helps the
brain to develop and become better organized. Synapses—
the microscopic connections between one brain cell and
another—are formed when children spend time in active
play. This explains why research has found motor abilities
and play to be related to important learning processes, such
as attention, memory, self-regulation, and overall academic
achievement throughout childhood.
A good example of how learning and moving are connected relates to paying attention. Fascinating studies have found
that right after active motor play, children are more attentive in the classroom than they are when they have been sitting
for a long period of time. This may be because children have been able to expend pent-up energy and are now ready to
learn—this is the “getting the wiggles out” theory. Another view is that during motor play, children learn to better regulate
their thinking and behavior. They must control their own body movements and inhibit impulses on the playground, and
these skills transfer to the classroom to help them better focus on learning tasks.
Planning Active Play to Support Learning
Teachers, parents, and other family members can plan outdoor, active play time to help children focus on learning once
they come back inside:
• Ensure adequate active play: Adults should make sure that children have an opportunity to spend at least 60 minutes
engaged in active play outside every day. If weather does not permit going outside, adults can plan indoor activities
such as dancing to music, active games, motor challenges (“How many times can you jump before I say stop?”), and
obstacle courses.
• Strategically schedule outdoor time: Scheduling outdoor play time just prior to group time or shared reading periods
can help children to pay attention. Many teachers are wary of such a schedule because children seem “wound up”
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after coming inside, and it can take several minutes for children to calm down and focus. But once the class regains
their attention, they are often able to sustain it for much longer if they have just been outside.
Plan motor challenges: Adults can challenge children to incorporate movement throughout the day by planning a
daily movement theme (“Each time you get out of your seat today, touch your head, shoulders, knees and toes two
times before you continue with what you got up to do.”) Such activities are great for transitions throughout the day. In
addition, planning play experiences that are both intellectually and physically challenging can further support
children’s self-regulation skills. For example, adults can pose problems that children must solve with their bodies
(“How can we use our bodies to create a bridge that Jordan can go under?”)
Schedule frequent “movement breaks”: Encouraging children to get up and move frequently throughout the day
provides additional opportunities for children to engage in motor activity, and may help to facilitate transitions
between activities. Quick breaks could include having children make two marching or skipping laps of the classroom
before sitting down for snack or use their arms to fly like a bird to line up or swim like a fish to the circle time area. If
children show signs of inattention during lessons or shared reading periods, adults can spontaneously incorporate a
quick movement experience (“Can everyone stand up and stretch like the tree in our story?”)
Play self-regulation games involving movement: Adults can use games such as “Stop and Go,” “Red Light, Green
Light” freeze races, or Simon Says to encourage children to learn to control and inhibit movements. These games
should be adapted to ensure that all children can participate the entire time, so that children remain active throughout
the game—children should not be “eliminated” when they make a mistake.
Motor Play in the Curriculum
Mr. Smith in the opening story uses motor play to promote learning in a second way—he directly teaches academic skills
through movement. Research has shown that children can more easily acquire academic knowledge when they are moving
rather than sitting still. For example, preschool-aged children were found to better learn the names of letters when they
were allowed to move around, play with plastic letters, write stories with different writing materials, and talk to their
peers. By monitoring children’s brain activity, these researchers learned that more parts of their brains were activated
when they were moving, compared to when they just listened to the teacher.
Children also learn new words and form complex sentences when actively playing. This is partly because motor play often
includes much communication with peers. Children speak more often and in longer sentences in play. Also, motor activity
affords adults opportunities to teach new words and concepts. When an adult states aloud the prepositions that describe
children’s actions—“You’re crawling under the climber,” “You climbed all the way up there,” or “You went all the way
around,”—she is teaching language.
Teachers can integrate movement into any academic area in the
curriculum. Below are a few ideas:
• Use active games to teach math: Teachers can plan
physically active games that get children counting and
moving at the same time. Children can count steps as they
climb or play games where they try to stand with three,
four, or even five body parts touching the ground. Children
can also measure the distance that they’ve jumped (or how
far they’ve thrown something), or they can toss a bean bag
onto a number and then jump the same number of times as
the number their bean bag landed on.
• Use movement to reinforce literacy concepts: Teachers can
encourage children to demonstrate aspects of a story as she
reads it (“Let’s all stomp like the angry bear!”) or ask children to reenact the story to check on listening
comprehension (“Show us what the rabbit did next.”) A teacher could also ask a volunteer to pretend to be a character
and have the other children guess which character he is based on the child’s movements. To reinforce alphabet
recognition, teachers can give children long pieces of rope to shape into large letters on the floor, ask children to find
the letter that their name starts with on the rug and hop on it five times, or ask children to partner up and use their
bodies to make a letter.
• Teach new words and concepts through movement: Teachers can help children to understand new vocabulary by
asking children to physically demonstrate the words (“Walk as if it is a gusty day” or “Show me how the baker goes
out for a stroll.”) When teaching a lesson about a specific animal, teachers can spend time discussing how the animal
moves and encourage children to try it out (“Let’s lumber to lunch like big old bears.”)
•
Include movement in science activities: When teaching about plants, teachers can use movement and dance to have
children act out growing from a curled up seed into a taller and taller plant (“I’m so small, you can’t see me at all,
then I grow and grow and grow, until I am tall.”) When learning about the transformation of a caterpillar, children can
demonstrate what it would be like to crawl like a caterpillar, be confined to a cocoon, and burst out and fly like a
butterfly.
Teachers, parents, and caregivers can use movement to promote both young children’s general thinking and learning and
to teach academic skills. Simply playing in a park or on the playground will promote attention, self-regulation, and
memory. Integrating movement into the curriculum will get the brain working more fully and enhance learning outcomes.
Additional Resources
The following resources provide additional information about
Video Resource
including movement throughout the day and using it to teach or
Watch a video with ideas that you can try
reinforce the curriculum:
for incorporating movement into the
• The Head Start I Am Moving, I Am Learning campaign provides
preschool curriculum. Visit
training and resources for Head Start teachers to incorporate
www.easternct.edu/cece/resources.html and
movement into everyday classroom activities as well as into
click on “Head Start Body Start
parent meetings. For more information, visit
http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/ecdh/Health/Nutrition/Nutrition
project.”
%20Program%20Staff/IMIL/IamMovingIam.htm.
• Rae Pica has developed a series of books promoting active
learning for preschoolers in different curriculum areas. Titles include Jump Into Science, Jump Into Math, Jump Into
Literacy, and Moving & Learning Across the Curriculum: More Than 300 Activities & Games to Make Learning Fun.
Read more about the books and find other tips for teachers and parents at: www.movingandlearning.com.
• In the book Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head, neurophysiologist Dr. Carla Hannaford explains the
body’s role in learning and provides tips to help people learn, including using movement.
• In their book Read! Move! Learn!: Active Stories for Active Learning, Carol Totsky Hammett and Nicki Collins
Geigert provide ideas for active learning activities based on 75 popular children’s books.
• In A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool: Presenting the Evidence, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Golinkoff,
Laura Berk, and Dorothy Singer explain why young children learn best through play. The book includes a
comprehensive review of research supporting playful learning.
• In the book Achieving Learning Goals Through Play, Anne Widerstrom provides suggestions of using play-based
interventions with children with a range of challenging conditions. One chapter is dedicated to outdoor play, with
suggestions for adaptations as needed.
• In Moving With a Purpose: Developing Programs for Preschoolers of all Abilities, Renee McCall and Diane Craft
describe how to design a preschool movement program. The book includes sections on observing and assessing
children’s movements, adapting activities for children with special needs, and including parents as partners in the
educational process. Available from Human Kinetics at http://www.humankinetics.com//products/allproducts/moving-with-a-purpose.
References
Blakemore, C. (2003). Movement is essential to learning. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 74(9), 22-25, 41.
Castelli, D. M., Hillman, C. H., Buck, S. M., & Erwin, H. E. (2007). Physical fitness and academic achievement in third- and fifthgrade students. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 29, 239-252.
Cohen, L., & Uhry, J. (2007). Young children's discourse strategies during block play: A Bakhtinian approach. Journal of Research in
Childhood Education, 21, 302-316.
Fekonja, U., Marjanovič Umek, L., & Kranjc, S. (2005). Free play and other daily preschool activities as a context for child's language
development. Studia Psychologica, 47, 103-117.
Gabbard, C. (1998). Windows of opportunity for early brain and motor development. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and
Dance, 69(8), 54-55, 61.
Iverson, J. M. (2010). Developing language in a developing body: The relationship between motor development and language
development. Journal of Child Language, 37, 229-261.
James, K. (2010). Sensori-motor experience leads to changes in visual processing in the developing brain. Developmental Science, 13,
279-288.
Pellegrini, A. D., & Bohn, C. M. (2005). The role of recess in children's cognitive performance and school adjustment. Educational
Researcher, 34, 13-19.
Piek, J., Dawson, L., Smith, L., & Gasson, N. (2008). The role of early fine and gross motor development on later motor and cognitive
ability. Human Movement Science, 2(5), 668-684.
Rakison, D. H., & Woodward, A. L. (2008). New perspectives on the effects of action on perceptual and cognitive development.
Developmental Psychology, 44, 1209–1213.
This brief was developed by the Center
for Early Childhood Education at
Eastern Connecticut State University
for Head Start Body Start.
Authors: Dr. Jeffrey Trawick-Smith
and Julia DeLapp