Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Video - Movement Breaks for Classroom

Here is an informative video from Edutopia found over at the Peaceful Playgrounds blog. Four exercises are demonstrated to help refocus a student or raise a student's level of alertness. Great activities to get student's ready to learn!





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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really like this video and idea, Margaret. The four 'exercises' are easy and I believe effective for increasing alertness.

I think the words 'mental alertness' in the title are redundant - that eliminating the word 'mental' might be more accurate in their marketing. Just saying - that increasing alertness via movement is well substantiated, but 'mental' implies something more, perhaps less substantiated in research and science.

My Hubby is a teacher and I will pass this onto him. But I also think many teachers will just ignore this idea, sadly. Hubby's observation is that the national obesity problem is well-evidenced among teachers. Movement is not a part of their mindset.

Barbara

Your Therapy Source Inc said...

In my experience, another reason why teachers avoid movement in the classroom is behavior management. Many feel that if they let the students move around they will lose control of the class. I can understand that initially some younger children may be hard to settle back into their seats, but after several sessions of adding movement the children will adapt to the routine of calming down after movement breaks.

Agree with Hubby's observation - many teacher's faculty rooms have snack machines or home made goodies. Hard to resist.

I do not have a problem with the term "mental alertness". Recent research indicates that physical activity is associated with improved cognitive skills. Physical activity gets the brain ready to learn is that not mental alertness?

Anonymous said...

Yes - and perhaps I am thinly word-slicing. Seems my sensitivity to evidence 'claims' is a bit high right now. Also - I just remembered - this information is in sync with the Busy Bodies Ready Minds program by Athena Oden, PT.

Barbara

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