Why Do Children Need Opportunities to Use New Motor Skills They Learn?

During therapy sessions, we frequently break down activities into smaller parts or chunks to make it easier for children to learn new motor or life skills.  As the child progresses with those individual parts of the skill, the child then practices the entire activity as a whole. Sometimes this is done in an isolated environment (ie therapy room) and sometimes in the real environment (ie classroom).

Keep in mind, in order for the child to learn and retain the skill, the child must apply that skill in meaningful and functional activities.  This helps to lay the neural networks to achieve and retain the skill.

After the child completes the skill provide formal and informal feedback to help them improve. Use self assessment techniques allowing the child to determine what needs improvements.   This will again help lay the groundwork for strong neural networks for the skill.

So why do children need meaningful opportunities to practice new motor or life skills?  It creates strong neural networks in order to transfer the skill in different situations or to learn additional new skills.

The post Why Do Children Need Opportunities to Use New Motor Skills They Learn? appeared first on YourTherapySource.com Blog.

Personal Space Journey - Body Awareness Freebie

Here is a freebie page from Personal Space Journey which is a collection of activities to teach children about maintaining personal space.  You can download the body cards at http://yourtherapysource.com/personalspacejourneyfreebie.html

Here are some suggestions to use the cards for:

1.  Musical Body Poses:  Scatter the cards around the room.  Move to music.  Turn the music off.  Determine what body card is closest to you.  Make your body into the same position like the card.  Turn music on again and repeat.

2.  Guess Who I Am:  Make your body into a pose.  The other player has to determine what pose your are mimicking.

3.  Memory Match:  Print the cards twice.  Play a game of memory but in order to keep the match you have to mimic the body position.

4.  Quick Brain Break:  Match the body positions on the card completing each one scanning from left to right.  Continue for 1 minute.  Rest and repeat 3 times.

Download your copy at http://yourtherapysource.com/personalspacejourneyfreebie.html

Be sure to check out the complete Personal Space Journey.



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Using Whole Body Movement to Help with Knowledge Retention

At the University of Arizona there is the Embodied Games for Learning Lab.  The lab is creating games for K-12 classrooms that include movement with learning.  The researchers have found that students retain information better when they use their whole body to learn the information.

One of the lead researchers, Mina Johnson-Glenberg, states that

"Our controlled studies are showing that whenever students use gestures to learn, they actually are remembering information longer...Often, our immediate post-tests show results with no significant differences associated with learning from embodied games. However, we do see significant differences when students return for follow-up testing a week later. At that point, we are finding that those students who learned with gestures are retaining the information longer."

The students are retaining information longer when students use gestures to learn.

The researchers hypothesize that using motor memory provides an extra memory trace that helps students recall the information later.  They are working on creating motion capture games using the Microsoft Kinect.

  Check out this video:

 
Students use movement to increase learning from ASU Video Production on Vimeo.

Reference:  Crawford, Judy. Young students jog, jump and dance to retain what they learn. Retrieved from the Medical Express on the web on 1/25/2014 at http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-01-young-students-retain.html#nwlt

Get Up and Learn! How to integrate movement with learning

Summary: This is an electronic book of 48 pages with over 35 activities that incorporate movement and learning.   

Find out more at  http://yourtherapysource.com/getuplearn.html

3 Tips to Improve Motor Memory

Do you ever find that a child may learn a new motor skill (i.e. skipping) only to forget it rather quickly?  Or perhaps you teach a child a new skill and he/she remembers how to execute it for a long time (i.e. bike riding)?  There are many reasons why the body has better muscle memory for certain motor plans.  Here are 3 tips to help children retain motor skills over time:

1.  Practice, practice, practice.  The key factor in remembering a motor plan is to practice.  When a child learns to ride a bicycle, he/she practices hundreds perhaps thousands of revolutions in one bike riding session.  When a child practices a skill like skipping, he/she may only try it for 10-20 steps.  Therefore, the main ingredient to motor memory is practice! 

2.  Vary the environment.  It may be easy to skip in an isolated room with no distractions, but add in a crowded, loud gym and skipping may not be so easy anymore.  It is crucial to practice the skill in the real environment where you need to use the skill.  When you are able to complete a motor skill or carry out a motor plan in all environments you are more likely to retain that skill over time. 

3.  Space out practicing different but similar skills.  Perhaps you are working on galloping and the child is just mastering it.  Don't switch immediately to practicing skipping.  Space out the practice sessions between these two skills to allow the first skill to be retained.  Maybe a child is practicing proper spacing between each letter as he/she writes.  Don't immediately move to teaching a child proper spacing between words.  Since the spacing is a little different the child may have difficulty retaining the first skill of proper spacing between letters. 

Do you have any other tips to add to the list to help improve muscle memory?  Would love to hear your suggestions in the comments section. 

Balance and Motor Memory Video Activity Idea

Practice balance skills, coordination, jumping skills, motor planning and motor memory all with some duct tape and rope!  Watch the video for all the details at YourTherapySource.com. 

Motor Memory and Motor Planning App

There are constantly new apps coming out for the iphone and ipad.  Here is a cute one that actually involves physical movement - Move Like Me.  This game is suitable for young children to practice copying movement patterns and motor memory.  Basically, the child picks a character.  That character then performs a simple movement (hop, clap, march or sway).  The child then has to repeat what motion the character did.  It continues adding motions each round and the child must remember and repeat.

In addition there is a dance along option.  This allows the child to create a dance and then follow along to practice the dance.

Nice, novel app that encourages body awareness, physical activity, motor planning, coordination and motor memory.  Not bad for $1.99.

Move Like Me is available at the App store.