

Combine exercises or use them individually. Say: ‘Are your brains ready for work? Sit down and get ready to learn.’īrain gym activities can take many forms, for example: walking on the spot, neck circles, yawning, deep breathing, etc. Now, let’s do the whole exercise again twice.’ Put your right ear on your right shoulder and use your right arm to draw sideways eights. Give the instructions again while learners perform the exercise. Repeat five times’ Stage 4: Play activity Draw a sideways eight with your left arm. Hold your left arm out like an elephant’s trunk. Say: ‘Put your left ear on your left shoulder. Show the learners what to do as you give instructions. It will help us wake up all the areas of our brain.’ Stage 3: Demonstrate Say: ‘This exercise is called “The elephant”.

What do football players do to warm up their bodies before a game?’ Say: ‘Let’s start the day by warming up our brains. Make sure all the learners have some clear space around them so they are not touching anyone else. These learners often need something to help them concentrate, and the movement encourages the right and left halves of the brain to work together. Brain Gym movements are divided into three dimensions associated with the three midlines found in human bodies: laterality, centering, and focus (Dennison. They’re especially useful for learners who have learning disabilities. They can warm up the learners and help them develop positive relationships. Read what a teacher says about this activity:īrain gym exercises are great to use at the start of the day. You can learn more about at Brain Gym at Deb Avery | Published 1 December 2022 You will be noticeably calmer after that time. Keep the ankles crossed and the wrists crossed and then breathe evenly in this position for a few minutes.Bend the elbows out and gently turn the fingers in towards the body until they rest on the sternum (breast bone) in the center of the chest.Take your right wrist and cross it over the left wrist and link up the fingers so that the right wrist is on top.Cross the right leg over the left at the ankles. Just do this either sitting or standing for about 2 minutes.Crawl forward, moving opposite limbs together. Have kids start on the ground on all fours. Put the right hand across the body to the left knee as you raise it, and then do the same thing for the left hand on the right knee just as if you were marching. The Michigan Brain Gym Consortium recommends cross crawling to activate both hemispheres of the brain. Place your index and thumb into the slight indentations below the collar bone on each side of the sternum.Put one hand so that there is as wide a space as possible between the thumb and index finger. Background: Brain Gym is a simple and pleasant movement, consisting of 26 simple movements that are believed to enhance academic and behavioral performance.Here are a few examples of the PACE movements: Brain Buttons Before beginning their exercises students are advised to drink lots of water to keep hydrated before and during class since the brain consists of 90% water. Many educators use Brain Gym activities (PACE: Positive, Active, Clear, Energetic) as warm-up exercises for reading, writing and mathematics because it was found that overall concentration in the classroom improved. Moving the whole body in the shape of a lazy eight leads to increasing focus and attention, spatial awareness, lateralization and bilateral integration of eyes, ears and limbs. The movement consists of tracing a lateral eight over and over, sweeping across the lateral midline of the body again and again, which activates both the right and left hemispheres of the brain encouraging them to process together. Lazy eights have been recognized and used for years by occupational therapists, developmental optometrists and various practitioners as a very valuable tool for learning disabilities. One of the most important Brain Gym movements that integrate both hemispheres in the brain is the “lazy eight” or the “infinity” sign. When all parts of the brain communicate together, then “laterality”, “focusing” and “centering” take place. To create brain coordination, the Dennisons put forth the idea of coordinating the right and left hemispheres of the brain along with the front and back and top and bottom. Learning is not an isolated aspect of just brain functioning, but rather an integral part of every nerve and every cell connection to our bodies. When the brain has energy, the learning process improves. These movements are based on the fundamental idea that simple exercises help increase blood flow to the brain which provides oxygen and keeps the brain more alert.
BRAIN GYM MOVEMENT SERIES
They designed 26 Brain Gym activities in a series of exercises that improve academic performance. Brain Gym or Educational Kinesiology (Edu-K) was developed in the 1980s by educators Paul Dennison PhD and Gail Dennison who recognized the concept of “brain-body” integration.
