MI in Classroom

Lets explore some basic ways in which an MI (Multiple Intelligence) classroom comes alive.

Recollect that we are working on three MI based insights:

1. Learning can happen in eight different ways (MIs)
2. Each child benefits from a varied exposure (of all 8 intelligences)
3. Since each child has a different balance of these eight intelligences, let’s accept and celebrate each child for his or her strong intelligence.

1. First let’s make the names of intelligences easier for children. In Geniekids, we use the following terms - Body Genie, Picture Genie, Number Genie, Self Genie, People Genie, Nature Genie, Music Genie, and Word Genie. We like this usage of the word "genie" as children associate the word  with magic and we can easily point out that there is a different kind of magic inside each one of us. Thomas Armstrong uses the term "smart" for intelligence. Whatever be the term, it is imperative that children become aware of differing strengths in themselves and in others and how each one is beautiful.
2. Give each child a badge saying ‘I am special’ with a picture of how that child is special. If possible, click a photo of each child doing his favourite activity, say jumping, singing, reading, playing, caring, etc. Or let the child draw or print out clip-arts of children doing various things. The children can then display a different badge every day, showing that they can be special in many ways.
3. Have an "I can teach you” board in the class, where a child can write down what he can teach others, including the teacher. Children can teach us how to play with a cat, how to do a cartwheel, how to giggle endlessly, and so on. The idea is again to show how they can also become teachers.
4. Ask children what they would like to become when they grow up. Usually children keep changing their choices, but this is good as every profession requires a different set of strengths and skills. Again children can wear "caps" or badges indicating the kind of profession they want and the kind of skills they need for that.
5. Have an intelligence hunt. This is an activity where children take up a magazine and look for persons  possessing the skill of a musician, or a person who is friendly with others or people who works with animals and nature, etc. As they search, they can cut and paste these pictures under respective intelligences.
6. As children become familiar with different intelligences, they are soon able to identify the intelligence they are using. Again a good idea with younger children is to make it tangible, so if they are doing a musical activity they wear a musical badge and if they doing a word activity they wear a word badge, etc.
7. It is important to show to children that just as different flowers or colours or songs or dishes make this world beautiful, so each of us is differently enabled. We use terms like ‘I am a different flower’ and ‘he is a different flower’ and she is different.
8. Ask children to act out how their parents use different intelligences when they are home, at work, when playing a game, etc. See if you can ask the parents at home to help you further.

1. How you welcome
   Hum a popular tune for the kids to identify, decorate your ears / hair in a funny way, wear an animal mask and behave like that animal, speak a gibberish language (like at the beginning of the ‘Bum Bum bole’ song), check everybody’s feelings, give a microphone where children talk about what they did the previous evening, each child adds three circles to an artwork, and so on.
2. What you do to your environment
   Play fun songs, hide animals or flowers (pictures / models / soft toys or actual flowers) in different places in the class, pin photographs of children in unusual places, hang a puppet to whom children can talk, decorate your room with a hundred books,  put ‘join the dots’ in surprise places.
3. The way you do your activities
   In any activity get children to sing the main task as a rap song, Make a long chart paper snake and in the scales, each child writes / draws what they liked about the activity most. First, children do this alone and then they do the same in pairs or in teams of three, calculate the time that you took to do this. Fix a starting bindi on the clock and then an ending bindi, etc.
4. How you tell a story
   Convert the main line of the story into a song which all can sing, count the number of things, like say rabbits or flowers mentioned in the story, hide and guess the visuals after the text has just been read out (do this with unfamiliar books), as you tell the story, children use different objects from nature to make puppets - so they make things using stuff  like twigs, leaves, barks, as you read, children express their feelings, as you tell, children act the story using only fingers, they also say a rhyming word when you end a sentence.
5. How you spend snacks time
   Compare  the bigger and smaller  snacks among the  items, share your food, talk about your favourite food, list out what food comes from plants, what comes from animals and also the food items whose origins you are not aware of, give adjectives to your food (or to mummy - who cooked), eat without using your thumb, clap your hands in the following rhythm -- 1 -22 - 333 - 4444 --- and then eat and then repeat this pattern, arrange your tiffin boxes to make it look difficult.
6. How you manage the play time
   Keep a score board while children play; let children interview each other (like sportspersons); let them play with their eyes closed; each child becomes a letter of the alphabet and in that shape, the child plays; let children play while singing; let children play with the 'other' hand, etc.
7. And even how to convert home-work into fun-work
   Example of a home theme - Refrigerator at home: Interview parents on what they like about their refrigerator, draw what is inside the fridge, call and tell grandparents what is in the  refrigerator, copy words on all food labels in the  refrigerator, make the vegetables dance to any music of your choice, make a count of total number of directly edible stuff and total raw stuff, observe the  rear side of the refrigerator or under it  to try and see the machine.

• Body Genie: Children have to make the letter 'P' first using their Body. Next they pick up a given set of visuals and choose the one which starts with a /p/ sound. Now using their body as a statue (kind of dumb charades) they have to make a word that begins with the /p/ sound so that others can guess the word. People Genie: Children pick up a given set of visuals and choose the one which has the starting sound as /p/. Now they have to go and ask questions to others - in an attempt to get the /p/ word out of their mouth. For example, one can go and ask his friend, "With what do you write?" and the child might reply "pen" or "pencil". Or "Who catches athief?, etc.
• Number Genie: Children are given lots of visuals with many words starting with /p/. Each of these cards also has the words written behind it. First they identify the visual without looking at the back of the card, then they make a list of  “p” words so that they have at least one two- letter word, one three -letter word, one four- letter word and so on till they reach ten letters. They arrange these cards in the ascending order of the number of letters in each word and show others. 
• Self Genie: Children pick up a given set of visuals (mostly objects) and choose which one starts with the  /p/ sound and something which they have used in their lives. They think about how they have used the object in their life and also classify it as something that they would really like to have and others which they are not concerned about. They set up a small shop of the ones they want to buy and they can talk about their experience (if they want) when somebody asks them.
• Picture Genie: As was done for people genie, the children first draw a big letter P and decorate it in different ways. Next, they are given a set of words (these could be recorded and played back through headphones or the faculty can read them out in the child's ears). The child chooses the ones with the starting sound  /p/. Now they draw the word (kind of pictionary) so that others can guess the word that starts with /p/. If required they can take help of pictures from an old magazine also.
• Nature Genie: Children either go out into the open environment or if that is not practical, then they are given large scenes from nature (from story books). The child looks for things that begin with the sound /p/, identifies them and then makes a small riddle based on the object’s role in nature for others to guess.
• Music Genie: A number of songs are played and while children hear the song, they try to catch as many words as they can which begin with the sound /p/. Once they have collected the words, they can make their own song like "Old Pac Ponald had a /p/ pee pa pee pa po, and in his /p/ he had a pen, pee pa pee pa po, here a write there a write, every where a write write...."
• Word Genie: Children are given lots of visuals. First, they choose two characters both with names that start with the sound /p/ - like Pom and Perry. They choose 8 (or more) words starting with /p/ and then they have to make a story using these /p/ words and obviously the two /p/ characters. They try to make it as funny or nonsensical as possible. Finally they narrate their story to others.