11 year-old Benefits from Brain Gym

One of the things that is rewarding to those of us who teach is to see or hear that children are internalizing what we are teaching them. Such was my pleasure when a friend and colleague shared that she had taught her son some of the Brain Gym activities I had taught her class and that he was finding success with them. Following are his words:

"I have greatly benefitted from Brain Gym. It has helped me study at school better. It helps me focus. It helped me when I was stressed in computer class. It even helps me relax if I can’tget to sleep. Brain Gym really helps me."

D.P. Boy Age 11

Another Aid in Helping Us Learn Easier and More Effectively

Are you right-handed? Left-handed? Are you right-brained? Left-brained? We all know if we are right-handed or left-handed. Many of us have also heard about left-brained or right-brained. What we may not know is that we also have a dominate foot, ear, and eye and that this information can help us to learn easier and/or better. Last week I took a Brain Gym class to learn more about this and how it impacts our learning.

One of the first things we did in class was to determine our personal unique learning style, based on the side of the brain, eye, ear, hand, and foot that is dominant for us. I found that I am "mixed". My dominate brain side is the right side (No surprise there!) with my dominate hand and ear being right also. However, my dominate eye and foot are on the left side. That gave me the appropriately named learning stye as "mixed". You may be thinking, : "Is that good?", "Is it bad?", "What does that mean?" It is like so many things about us. It is neither. However, having this information can give us insight about the way we learn and react to things.
Because each of us is unique, we do and see similar things differently. How often have we watched people load a dishwasher differently than we do, start to draw a picture in a different way than we would, or even put a picture puzzle together differently! As we learn more about our unique learning style, we are better equipped to learn. Some of the exciting things I learned in this class were: how we can learn to help children who struggle to learn more easily; that if we struggle, it doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with us, but it is just that we learn differently; and how movement, in this case using Brain Gym Activities, can help to access the whole brain resulting in more effective and easier learning;

An Experience: Handwriting

Recently a young boy came to me. He was assigned to write some words, but he had continued to refuse to do so. He wouldn't consider picking up the pencil to do it. After awhile he agreed to write a portion of the assignment. As he wrote, I noticed that he was holding his pencil in a tight grip and the task seemed labored and slow. After he had written a little, I asked him to put the pencil down and do some other things with me. I had him do "Double Doodles" in the air. First we did them together and then he did them by himself. Then he did "Lazy 8" with different colors of crayons. Following that I asked him to write some more. His first words were "This is easy". He was able to stay on task to complete his assignment.

"New" Introduction to Brain Gym Workshops

Often I receive emails, phone calls, and talk with people who are interested to know about Brain Gym or to know more about it. From what they do know they have the desire to know more and feel that it will benefit their lives personally and/or professionally. Often they can not invest the 3 days to take Brain Gym 101. To meet this need I have just announced 3 workshops to be presented this fall. They are:

• "Introduction to Brain Gym: How to Use It Effectively in the Educational Setting". This workshop will be presented in 3 sessions on Saturdays October 29, November 5, and 12. It will be 8:30am- 2pm. USOE credits are available for relicensing in UT.
  

For more information contact me at underthelearningtree@gmail or 801-377-2882.

New School Year, New Beginnings! Plan for success!

Here it is September 1! It's hard to believe how quickly the days, weeks, and even months come and go. Yet they do. For those of you whose lives include school, it is a time of new beginnings. The new school year has just begun or will be beginning. With that comes new teachers, students, clothes, supplies, friends, practice and game schedules, routines, etc. These new adventures are exciting and fun, but a result can be more things to do with less time to do them. As you think about your schedules, be sure to remember to plan for the basics that help you and your children successful. Some considerations are:

• Get adequate rest.
• Eat healthy food
• Drink plenty of water
• Exercise daily
• Develop and maintain a routine to support success