![]() They think about things and ask lots of questions. They take things apart to figure out how they work. This helps the left and right sides of the brain to work together. It allows messages to travel back and forth between the right and the left sides. The Corpus Callosum is like a brain bridge. In your brain this is where a dense band of nerve fibers are located called the Corpus Callosum. If you separate your hands, the area just above the finger nails, where the fingers bend – rub them together. When you move the left side of your body you are using your right brain and when you move the right side of your body you are using your left brain. You can see that the brain is divided into 2 sides – the left and the right. It is important that they work together as a team. We have the brain divided into 4 layers top to bottom and each layer has different jobs to do. The little fingers make the back of the brain. You can make a hand model of the brain by making two fists and putting them together. At the end of each semester, I would ask the children to write down their thoughts and let me know if they thought Brain Gym® was assisting them.Let’s make a hand model of the brain. If they needed to settle after a break we would do PACE again. The children were encouraged to use Brain Gym movements in class when they felt ‘stuck’ doing a task. In the following term the children would reflect on the previous goal before making a new one. The children had great fun saying their goals all at once. For the Learning Menu, some children chose one movement and others chose a partner so they could do both Positive Points and Hook-ups together. The pre-activity often included scoring how positive they were out of 10 and drawing a quick picture of themselves colouring any body parts that felt worried or tense for the goal. ![]() Then we would have a session where we did the five steps of the Positive Attitude Balance altogether. ![]() Each student would write their own individual goal and throughout the day I would check all the goals were written using positive language. Listening Balance.Įach term I would organise a Positive Attitude Balance. This would lead to several opportunities for class goals using the 5 step Brain Gym® goal setting process. At first some children needed support to do this process- to remember the sequence of movements, to speak clearly and confidently, to make a choice of movement to cross the midline, and to be responsible for putting the tally marks correctly on the rosters.Īt the beginning of the year in our Well Being lessons we would discuss why we go to school, how we do our best, what we do to listen well and how to be a good friend etc. That way everyone had a turn at being a leader and choosing movements and recording tally marks. The leader would mark their names on another roster. Finally the leader would choose four classmates, who would choose four different movements. counting by 5s to 100, saying the alphabet sounds etc After that the leader would choose their version of doing The Cross Crawl and then we did Hook-ups. They would demonstrate the Brain Buttons and we would do them as we practised a skill eg. making a toast (setting the goal for the day) through the Sipping Water activity. Once the movements were known, a roster was set up so children would have a turn at being the Brain Gym leader to demonstrate the PACE movements eg. I used this format for about 15 years with the junior primary classes I taught. Our fitness break was an opportunity to do the Lengthening movements such as the Calf Pump. We then started each day with PACE and during term 1, I gradually introduced all the 26 Brain Gym® movements, starting with Energy Exercises. ![]() In my year 2/3 classroom I introduced the four Brain Gym® PACE movements in the first week of school. After my first couple of years using PACE and slowly introducing Brain Gym® movements to my class, I worked out ways to embed it in the daily routine, in Well Being sessions and in specific lessons.
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