For young children, focus is not just about “trying harder.” It depends on attention, energy, impulse control, emotional readiness, and the ability to stay with a task. These skills are closely connected to executive function and self-regulation.

Movement gives children’s brains and bodies a structured way to manage energy. A short movement activity can help a child wake up when they feel sluggish, release extra energy when they feel restless, reset after sitting for a while, or transition more smoothly into a learning task.

Movement can support:

• attention and focus
• self-regulation
• emotional readiness for learning
• impulse control
• sustained engagement
• smoother transitions into learning
• on-task behavior and classroom participation

This does not mean movement solves every attention or regulation challenge. But when movement is used intentionally, it can be a powerful tool for helping children get ready to learn, stay engaged, and participate more fully.

Learn More

• CDC — Classroom Physical Activity: Overview of how classroom movement can support attention, on-task behavior, engagement, and learning.
• Mahar et al. — Classroom-Based Physical Activity and On-Task Behavior: Study finding that brief classroom-based movement activities increased elementary students’ in-school physical activity and improved on-task behavior during academic instruction.
• Best — Effects of Physical Activity on Children’s Executive Function: Review of research suggesting that physical activity can support executive function, including skills like attention, inhibition, and cognitive control.

Research on embodied cognition suggests that learning is shaped not just by thinking, but by physical experience as well. Indeed, we see that children often understand ideas more deeply when they can see them, say them, move with them, gesture them, or act them out.

This matters because many early learning concepts are abstract. Letters, sounds, numbers, directions, emotions, and ideas can be hard for young children to hold in memory when they only hear or see them. 

Movement adds a kinesthetic component to learning, giving children another way to process and remember what they are learning. This kind of multi-pathway learning can strengthen memory, retention, and recall.

Movement can support learning by helping children:

• connect ideas to physical actions
• make abstract concepts more concrete
• remember information through gesture, rhythm, or repetition
• actively participate instead of passively listening
• build stronger associations between words, ideas, and experiences

Movement does not need to be complicated to be meaningful. A gesture, action, rhythm, or repeated movement can transform abstract concepts – like letters! – into learning experiences that stick.

Learn More

• Mavilidi et al. — A Narrative Review of School-Based Physical Activity for Enhancing Cognition and Learning: Reviews research on school-based physical activity, cognition, learning, and embodied approaches, supporting the idea that movement can be integrated into learning itself.
• Macedonia — Embodied Learning: Why at School the Mind Needs the Body: Explains embodied learning from a neuroscientific perspective and supports the idea that learning is shaped by bodily experience, not just mental processing.
• Edutopia — How Teachers Can Use Hand Gestures to Support Students’ Learning: Translates gesture and embodied-learning research into classroom application, with examples of how hand movements can support comprehension, memory, and recall.

This matters because young children often learn best through concrete, interactive experiences. Movement gives them a way to explore ideas, practice skills, express understanding, and stay involved.

Movement can help learning feel:

• active instead of passive
• playful instead of repetitive
• motivating instead of tedious
• participatory instead of performative
• more developmentally appropriate for young learners

Movement can also help sustain engagement during difficult or frustrating tasks by giving children something active to do, not just something to sit through. A child who might tune out during a repetitive activity may be more willing to participate when the task includes rhythm, gesture, action, or movement.

Of course, movement supports learning most effectively when done intentionally – the goal is to use movement in ways that support attention, participation, joy, and learning.

Learn More:

• NAEYC — Principles of Child Development and Learning: Explains that young children learn through active, meaningful, and playful experiences, including physical play — supporting the idea that movement is developmentally appropriate for early learning.
• Petrigna et al. — Does Learning Through Movement Improve Academic Performance in Primary Schoolchildren?: Reviews research on movement-integrated learning for children ages 3–11 and concludes that learning through movement can be an effective, low-cost, and enjoyable strategy for elementary schoolchildren.
• Lindt & Miller — Movement and Learning in Elementary School: Describes how elementary teachers can integrate movement into reading, math, and other lessons to increase student interest, engagement, and participation.