Spatial reasoning part 2: Developing 'body sense'

Babies often seem fascinated with their feet. When babies reach for their toes, they are discovering their body through movement. This type of early sensorimotor experience supports the beginnings of their awareness of spatial relationships – in this case the changing location of their feet as they wriggle. These experiences also support awareness of the properties of shapes – a line of toes, the roundness of a ball or the bumpiness of a textured toy – well before children have words for these shape properties. We refer to these kinds of first-hand, physical experiences as ‘embodied learning’.

An embodied approach to learning not only has significant benefits for children's spatial development but the opportunities increase as children become more mobile. For example, research has shown that children who have regular experience of physically exploring a number track on the floor show improved understanding of number. Children start to explore whether they can fit into spaces, boxes or tunnels, and manipulate objects to learn about their size and shape. Research has also shown that teaching children to think and learn spatially will benefit them in maths.