The Whole Child Approach is a holistic educational approach that cultivates the spiritual, emotional, physical, and psychological dimensions of a developing child. It goes beyond their academic and future professional success, to prepare children to meet the overall challenges they will face later in life. Schools that follow this approach recognize their responsibility to support students’ health and happiness, apart from their academic results, by creating the appropriate learning environment that includes all different learning styles providing success in many modalities.

 

 

How to Implement it in the Classroom?

 

Kinems is designed to support a “Station-Rotation” implementation model of the “Whole Child Approach”. Within a rotation model, students move between learning stations, either on a fixed schedule or at the teacher’s discretion. There are four main stations, each one representing a different learning style and focused on developing different skills and modalities.

 

Four Main Stations

 

1. Movement Station

2. Technology Station

3. Collaboration Station

4. Individual Learning Station

1. Movement Station

The key innovative station is the Movement-based immersive learning Station utilizing the Kinect camera. The teacher chooses a specific subject and learning goal, and the game is individualized for each child to play at their developmental level. Students enlist their body movements to practice ELA and Math, turning learning into a fun embodied activity!

2. Technology Station

The Technology Station provides learning experience through activities played on a laptop, desktop, or tablet. The same activities offered in the Movement Station with the chosen learning goals are available with the use of a mouse or touchscreen, reinforcing eye-hand coordination, as well as fine motor skills.

3. Collaboration Station

At the same time, a group of students can be at another station that offers a collaborative experience working on the same goal using Kinems’ educational board games, interacting with other students, and practicing social and emotional skills.

This station also promotes Project-based Learning, as children work together with their peers and their teacher’s instructions in order to complete a project, by cutting and gluing the pieces needed to build the board game. Through this process, they also develop problem-solving and leadership skills.

4. Individual Learning Station

Finally, there is an Individual Learning Station providing printable learning materials for math or writing that reinforce the same concept. Every activity of the Kinems platform has a printable form which students can use to practice the chosen learning goal using pencils, markers and crayons.

Within a 30 minute class, students can experience at least two stations. Depending on their level and attention span, they can rotate every 10 minutes and experience three rotations. This is especially effective in classrooms where there is a paraprofessional that assists the teacher.

Since the content for all stations is available on the Kinems Platform, planning is as easy as pressing a button once the teacher searches for the goal and finds the aligned game!

There are 36 games and over 300 potential learning experiences, all customizable and aligned with IEP goals for Pre-K through grade 5. The goals are also aligned to each State’s Standards in Math and ELA.

 

Find out how Kinems’ Whole Child Approach can support your students’ personal and academic development by booking a Free Demo with one of our Educational Experts:

 

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