Basham was certified in the first of five phases of Brain Gym after a
workshop last spring. She brought the idea back to her school and has
been teaching other teachers to use the program.
Now it's in every classroom. A group of students were videotaped
performing the exercises at the beginning of the year, and now all students
watch the tape on the school's instructional television channel each
morning. Doing the exercises is as much a part of the morning routine as
saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing The Star-spangled Banner.
Like life itself, water is the first ingredient.
Basham asked her students what they say about bottled water each
morning. What word do they use?
"Don't open it with your teeth," said a tiny voice from the front of the room.
Actually, hydrate was the term she was looking for.
The exercise begins with a generous amount of bottled water, which some
teachers allow students to keep at their desks. Fresh water ionizes salts in
the body, thus increasing electrical potential across cell membranes.
Water is also essential for protein formation and the functioning of nerve
networks, and it increases oxygen uptake in the blood.
After a swig of H2O, students press one hand to a "brain button"area
of the upper chest and the other to their navel. This brings the body's
attention to the child's gravitational center. After 20 or 30 seconds,
they switch hands.
Students then perform a "cross crawl." First, they raise the left knee
and tap it with the right hand or elbow, then raise the right knee and tap
it with the left hand or elbow; then they raise their feet in front of their
bodies and tap them with the opposite hand. In some classes, they raise
their heels behind their bodies and tap with the opposite hand. Each of
these actions is repeated several times.
Other activities can include neck rolls, sit-ups, foot flexes, belly
breathing and "energy yawns." Students also link their fingers and twist
their arms like pretzels in front of them, or twist their ears to "clamp
on thinking caps."
If a student has trouble completing a movement, it could indicate
processing problems in the brain. For instance, one of the students in
Basham's class can't master "crossing the midline" and shows it through
an inability to write her name -- not because she can't spell, but because
she simply doesn't hold a pencil well. "Being able to cross the midline also
correlates to reading left-to-right," Basham said.
Each class at Oakland Terrace performs the exercises about four
times a day -- first thing in the morning and again each time the students
return to class from another area such as P.E., lunch or music.
"We do it after the children have been sitting at a desk for a while,
or before we begin another section," Williams said. "It's a wonderful exercise."
Williams called for her students' attention and told them to
"hydrate." "Get your brain ready to learn today," she said.
http://www.braingym.org/ -
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