Move It To Learn It

Move It to Learn It Celebrating the Challenges Conference-Alberta, Canada October 16, 2010 9:00-10:30 AM ©Sandra Sunquist Stanton NCC, LPC

Welcome to our workshop! Carla Hannaford says ―Movement is Mandatory for Learning‖. We hope our time together will give you background to understand why your students need to move, and some ways to provide for that within your regular curriculum and setting. Brain Coaching: Tapping / Body and Spirit to Max the Mind Parking Lot – Interactive Workshop

Principles of Movement for Learning:

How Does Learning Happen? The Brain‘s Motor Centers

Corpus Collosum

Vestibular System

Visual Processing

Vestibular-Ocular-Proprioceptive Triad:

So What?

Memory Mechanics Connections of the Heart LLC www.ourbrainbuddies.com

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Move It to Learn It

© Sandra Sunquist Stanton NCC, LPC

Short Term, Working Memory

Long Term Memory

Memory Systems What Where How Now

Brain Basics

Neurotransmitters

Movement and Brain Chemistry

Emotion and Learning

Stress and Learning

Translating Principle into Practice: Active Education – Julian Reed

Brain Gym

Stability Balls -- EP Rock Elementary School, Hudson, Wisconsin USA

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Move It to Learn It

© Sandra Sunquist Stanton NCC, LPC

Julian Reed, Ph.D. Assistant Professor in Health and Exercise Science at Furman University in Greenville SC, US and his K-12 teaching colleagues have published a book of practical tips for adding movement to your classroom are found in Dr. Julian Reed‘s book: Active Education: Lessons for Integrating Physical Activity With Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies Please contact him for a copy of his very practical book. Some excerpts follow… ―Sometimes you feel half of the kids are with you and half are zoned out,‖ said Rachel Parris, a third-year teacher in Greenville South Carolina. Adding movement into her lessons, she observed that ―my lower-achieving kids, their reading has gone up.‖ Dr. Reed has given us permission to share some of movement suggestions offered on his website: http://www.moveintheclassroom.com/ ―In a typical school day Parris incorporates a movement game into her lessons at least once. ‗They‘re cross-hemisphere, so that they‘re working both the right-side and the left side of the brain,‘ she said about Brain Gym. ‗The kids love them and they can do more afterward‘‖. Adding movement to your classroom pays off. The ways to do it are unlimited. Try some of these in your classroom… 

Plan movement breaks, outdoors if possible, to break up seated lessons.

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Replace classroom chairs with Stability Balls o Specially designed exercise balls have little feet on the bottom so they stay put. o Sitting on the balls allows children to move without distracting others. o Posture improves compared with sitting in chairs. o Available from Lisa Witt http://www.wittfitt.com

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Have ―fidget objects‖ available for students to use keeps muscles active during listening or discussion activities.

Reed notes, ―With childhood obesity on the rise, educators are finding ways to get kids moving to burn calories, to stay in shape, and to enhance their learning. Here is a brief sample of ways to make movement a part of the regular curriculum, not an ―add-on‖. Some of the following come from Julian Reed, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Active Education: Lessons for Integrating Physical Activity with Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies (Novascience 2009) 3|©Connections of the Heart LLC www.OurBrainBuddies.com

Move It to Learn It

© Sandra Sunquist Stanton NCC, LPC

Curriculum Areas: Math  Balance while counting to an assigned number by 2‘s, 3‘s, 5‘s, 10‘s etc.  Act out math problems: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, equations  Clapping rhythm for patterns  Count movements (hop, skip, leap, jump) into or out of a hoop in a minute  Measure perimeter in heel-toe steps around a marked circle or large area.  Experience Time: walk, balance, jump or jog for 1 minute, 3 minutes, 5 minutes.  Play hop scotch, then add or multiply the numbers

Science  Five Senses Stations: Partners take a card with a sensory picture or message and deliver it to the appropriate station identifying the sense involved.  Run in place, then check heart beat under the chin.  Solar System: Assign a sun and planet names to students, position them in order and have them walk through their orbits, staying in position order around the person named as the sun.  Make up rhyming songs and motions to recall bones in the skeleton, chemical names, action within an atom.

Language Arts  Form the body into letter shapes  Do an alphabet dance  Class walk around letter signs, stop, everyone picks one up and identifies something that begins with that letter or sound.  Create a pattern and a rhyme, matching it to a repeated movement  Act out prepositions  Vocabulary: one person acts out one of the assigned words while the partner names it.

Art  Walk or run a pattern to express a line  Draw a motion after demonstrating it  Make shapes with the body 4|©Connections of the Heart LLC www.OurBrainBuddies.com

Move It to Learn It 

© Sandra Sunquist Stanton NCC, LPC

Act out a feeling, then draw it, choosing colors to match feeling

Social Studies  Assign events to individual students, then have them line up as a timeline.  Act out a story or historical event Reed says, ―Teachers have concrete evidence — improved grades and fewer discipline problems — after implementing specific movement skills in their classes.‖ Catherine Dillon, Greenville South Carolina ESOL program lead teacher said, ―It never occurred to me… that you can get a person to learn much more easily doing a relay race than in a lecture.‖ +++++ An Overview from Connections of the Heart LLC Move It to Learn It: Visual-Proprioceptive-Ocular System Overview Chair less classrooms are helping students stay focused. Exercise (Stability) Balls replace traditional chairs, reportedly improving student focus, posture and fitness all at the same time. The topic came up during a Health Ed Network seminar I presented in St. Louis "Educational Applications of Current Neuroscience". It follows Carla Hannaford's observations in her classic book Smart Moves-All Learning Is Not In Your Head. Movement is essential for learning. Children's need for movement is based in the Vestibular System and the "Triad" described in workshops by Mary Kawar MS, OTR. Consulting with colleagues to further educate myself and answer participant's questions about the Visual – Proprioceptive-Ocular Systems, I acknowledge Anne Yockey MS, OTR for her guidance and professional resources in this search. She recommends workshops by Mary Kawar, MS, OTR for more information on these topics. Visual-Proprioceptive-Ocular System The Triad: Vestibular-ProprioceptiveOcular Systems are building blocks for higher level learning. We must look beyond traditional auditory teaching approaches and engage this foundational triad to create optimal learning. The integration of movement, eyes, ears and mouth works best. Visual Processing: Perfect 20/20 vision indicates only the clarity with which one sees. The traditional eye chart does not reassure reading ability or visual 5|©Connections of the Heart LLC www.OurBrainBuddies.com

Move It to Learn It

© Sandra Sunquist Stanton NCC, LPC

function. Visual Information Processing is a more meaningful term; referring to the visual processing skills necessary for learning and performance. EMDR-Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing: Eye movements correlate with emotional processing, so they can be used as a tool in healing. Research has proven EMDR effective in psychotherapeutic treatment of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). During EMDR, the client attends to emotionally disturbing material while focusing on an external stimulus. The therapist directs lateral eye movements, and uses hand tapping and audio stimulation. For more information visit the association's website: http://www.emdr.com/briefdes.htm Vestibular System: This system balances all sensory systems; very important for learning. It‘s located in the three semicircular canals of the inner ear. Vestibular receptors are the tiny hair cells (cristae) within the semicircular canals, the utricle and saccule of the vestibular labyrinth. From Sensory Integration: Theory and Practice Fisher, Murray and Bundy 1991The cochlea, also in the inner ear, takes care of hearing. Because it‘s surrounded by a liquid [paralymph] also shared with the vestibular system, vestibular stimulation can also improve hearing. Proprioceptive System: This senses spatial orientation and organization of body parts through information arising form one‘s position and movement for purposes of motor planning and control. It monitors intensity, rate, duration and timing of force of movement needed under all circumstances, based on muscle tension: how much and how fast a muscle is being stretched. Proprioceptive Signals: They originate in muscles, ligaments, tendons and joints, connective tissue and vibratory receptors in the bones. Feedback indicates the degree of stretch registered in the endings of muscle spindles. Occupational Therapists consider whether movement is active—originating from the individual‘s own brain, or passive—created externally. This information is adapted from workshop materials from Mary Kawar, MS, OTR.

A bit about your presenter…

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Move It to Learn It

© Sandra Sunquist Stanton NCC, LPC

Sandra Sunquist Stanton NCC, LPC is a Nationally Certified Counselor and Licensed Professional Counselor, holding current Wisconsin Dept of Public Instruction Certifications as Teacher, Counselor, Principal and Director of Curriculum. She served as Teacher and School Counselor for 25 years beginning on an Air Force Base in Germany and ending at an NICS school in Kunming China. A member of the collaborative B.R.A.I.N Team for Eau Claire County since 2000, she presents Brain Coaching workshops for families, parent groups, churches, and adult education seminars in Wisconsin and nationwide in the US. Her website www.ourbrainbuddies.com offers Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Newsletter links as well as publication credits, scheduled presentations and educational products. She serves on the Advisory Board for UW-Stout School of Education and the Health Ed Network continuing education company.

Bibliography: Paul and Gail Dennison, Brain Gym, and Brain Gym, Teacher’s Edition Rev Gurian, Boys and Girls Learn Differently Carla Hannaford, Smart Moves: Why All Learning is Not in Your Head Mary Kawar, M.O.R.E. Integrating the Mouth with Sensory and Postural Functions- (Book and Video) Mel Levine, A Mind at a Time John Ratey, SPARK Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters, Boys Adrift, Girls on the Edge (2010) Spencer-Gorin, Learning to Play, Playing to Learn The Secret Life of the Brain Chip Wood, Yardsticks Websites: www.OurBrainBuddies.com, Connections of the Heart LLC (additional resources listed on this site) www.brainconnection.com Scientific American www.braingym.org Edu-Kinesthetics www.vitallinks.net Mary Kawar –Vestibular Habilitation, M.O.R.E. www.wittfitt.com Lisa Witt - Stability balls-classroom chairs) www.moveintheclassroom.com Julian Reed www.whygendermatters.com Leonard Sax www.johnratey.com/newsite/index.html John Ratey-SPARK

I appreciate your presence and participation in this workshop! Taking this time to take care of yourself and sharpening your own tools will help them ultimately 7|©Connections of the Heart LLC www.OurBrainBuddies.com

Move It to Learn It

© Sandra Sunquist Stanton NCC, LPC

reach their potential. You will never completely realize the tremendous impact your work has for your students‘ lives, but I thank you for them. Your questions or comments are welcome. Please email them to me at [email protected] and I will get back to you. Thanks for inviting me to Amazing Alberta! Please let me know if there is anything further I can do to help! Sandi

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