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Multiple Intelligences in Early Childhood

Practical ideas for developing different kinds of intelligence.

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Early Childhood Activities

Explore hands-on ideas organized by different types of intelligence.

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Picture Smart - Hands-On - Visual

  1. Create collages from classroom photos, drawings, shapes, and natural materials.
  2. Build structures with blocks, magnetic tiles, or recycled materials and photograph the finished work.
  3. Use simple picture maps to show the classroom, playground, or route to a familiar place.
  4. Explore patterns with colored tiles, beads, blocks, or loose parts.
  5. Invite children to draw what they observe and then explain their pictures to a partner.
  6. Use a document camera or tablet camera to enlarge and examine leaves, textures, insects, or classroom objects.
  7. Create a class picture book using children's drawings, photographs, and dictated captions.
  8. Offer open-ended art materials such as paint, clay, paper, fabric, and collage materials.
  9. Have children recreate a block structure from a photograph or from a simple picture plan.
  10. Use visual schedules, picture cards, and sequence cards to help children organize routines and tell stories.
♫

Music Smart - Teaching Rhythm, Poetry, and Songs

  1. Create and copy simple rhythm patterns using rhythm sticks, shakers, drums, or homemade instruments.
  2. Turn familiar stories into songs by adding a repeated chorus or sound effects.
  3. Use songs and movement to practice counting, alphabet sounds, vocabulary, or classroom routines.
  4. Invite children to create sound effects for rain, animals, transportation, or characters in a story.
  5. Explore loud/soft, fast/slow, and high/low sounds through movement and instruments.
  6. Make simple instruments from safe recycled materials and compare the sounds they produce.
  7. Use poetry, rhymes, and chants to play with rhythm and new vocabulary.
  8. Let children take turns leading a short movement or rhythm pattern for the group.
  9. Listen to music from different cultures represented in the classroom community and talk about what children notice.
  10. Record children singing or performing a rhythm pattern so they can listen back and reflect on their work.
♣

Nature Smart - Working with Plants and Animals and the Outdoors

  1. Maintain a small classroom garden or container garden and observe changes over time.
  2. Create a simple weather observation chart using drawings, symbols, or photographs.
  3. Collect and sort natural objects such as leaves, rocks, pinecones, or sticks by size, shape, color, or texture.
  4. Observe insects and other small creatures outdoors and discuss how living things move, eat, and grow.
  5. Plant fast-growing seeds and document changes with drawings or photographs.
  6. Investigate water, sand, soil, light, and shadows through supervised hands-on exploration.
  7. Create a nature collection or observation table for children to examine and discuss.
  8. Look for patterns in the outdoor environment, such as leaf shapes, animal tracks, or repeating colors.
  9. Use children's outdoor questions as starting points for simple group investigations.
  10. Connect outdoor discoveries to books, drawing, counting, measuring, and vocabulary activities.
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Self Smart - Building personal responsibility

  1. Let children choose between two or more appropriate activities and explain their choice.
  2. Create simple personal goals with pictures, such as finishing a puzzle or learning a new skill.
  3. Provide a quiet reading, drawing, or reflection space where children can work independently.
  4. Invite children to make a 'My Favorites' book with drawings, photos, or dictated sentences.
  5. Have children describe something they learned, discovered, or improved during the day.
  6. Allow children to decide how they will complete an open-ended project and then discuss their choices.
  7. Use classroom jobs to build responsibility, independence, and a sense of contribution.
  8. Help children identify emotions and choose appropriate strategies for calming or asking for help.
  9. Invite children to revisit their work and describe what they would like to try next.
  10. Encourage children to share interests from home and use those interests as starting points for learning.
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People Smart - Learning to work in teams

  1. Use partner activities in which children take turns explaining, building, sorting, or solving a problem.
  2. Plan cooperative building challenges using blocks, magnetic tiles, or recycled materials.
  3. Create rotating classroom jobs that require children to help maintain the learning environment.
  4. Use dramatic play to practice cooperation, communication, and different community roles.
  5. Practice resolving simple disagreements through role-play and teacher-guided conversation.
  6. Create group stories in which each child contributes a character, setting, event, or idea.
  7. Play cooperative games that require children to listen, take turns, and work toward a shared goal.
  8. Invite children to help plan a classroom celebration, project, or special activity.
  9. Pair children to interview one another about interests, favorite activities, or family traditions.
  10. Connect classroom learning with age-appropriate opportunities to help others in the school or community.
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Number Smart - Math Skills - Logic - Problem-Solving

  1. Use everyday classroom materials to count, compare quantities, sort objects, and create patterns.
  2. Turn snack preparation or simple cooking activities into opportunities to measure, count, and compare.
  3. Create simple class graphs from children's choices, such as favorite books, fruits, colors, or activities.
  4. Use blocks and building materials to explore size, shape, balance, measurement, and spatial relationships.
  5. Pose real classroom problems and invite children to suggest and test different solutions.
  6. Explore water, sand, and other materials by filling, emptying, comparing, estimating, and measuring.
  7. Look for numbers, shapes, patterns, and quantities during classroom and outdoor walks.
  8. Use board games and simple games with dice or spinners to practice counting, matching, and turn-taking.
  9. Ask children to predict what will happen before testing an idea and then compare the result with the prediction.
  10. Have children explain how they solved a problem rather than focusing only on the final answer.
Aa

Word Smart - Reading and Writing

  1. Create stories from picture cards, objects, photographs, or children's own experiences.
  2. Invite children to dictate stories while an adult records their words, then reread the stories together.
  3. Build a classroom word wall using meaningful names, labels, vocabulary, and children's questions.
  4. Retell familiar stories with puppets, props, costumes, or simple story-sequence cards.
  5. Create class books that combine children's drawings, photographs, dictated language, and teacher-written text.
  6. Use dramatic play areas such as a restaurant, doctor's office, store, or post office to encourage language and literacy.
  7. Provide opportunities for children to experiment with writing through signs, lists, labels, menus, notes, and messages.
  8. Play sound and rhyme games that help children notice beginning sounds, rhyming words, and syllables.
  9. Invite children to describe a picture, object, or event and encourage the use of increasingly specific vocabulary.
  10. Make a story-starter box containing pictures, objects, or simple prompts that children can use to invent stories.
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Body Smart - Action, High Energy

  1. Create simple indoor or outdoor obstacle courses that involve balancing, crawling, jumping, and moving around objects.
  2. Act out vocabulary words, story events, animals, occupations, or emotions using the whole body.
  3. Use movement games to practice counting, patterns, positional words, and following directions.
  4. Provide opportunities for large-motor play such as running, climbing, throwing, catching, and jumping.
  5. Use dance and creative movement to respond to music, stories, pictures, or children's own ideas.
  6. Build structures with large blocks and encourage children to move, carry, stack, balance, and rearrange materials safely.
  7. Practice fine-motor skills through cutting, threading, connecting, molding, drawing, and manipulating small classroom materials.
  8. Invite children to invent a movement sequence and teach it to a partner or small group.
  9. Use outdoor exploration to combine physical activity with observation, counting, measuring, and problem-solving.
  10. Offer accessible movement choices so children with different physical abilities can participate meaningfully.