Dear NRyan,
I am not a Physical Education teacher though I have consulted with some in integrating some of the Brain Gym® activities into their program. The best place to find descriptions of the basic 26 Brain Gym exercises is the “Brain Gym®, Teacher’s Edition” book by Paul and Gail Dennison. It is available from Edu-Kinesthetics, Inc. at www.braingym.com . There is a link to their site in the pull down list under “about us” in the blue bar at the top of the home page of the www.braingym.org web site that this message board is on.
I would suggest utilizing some of the basic exercises as part of a warm up for each class before they begin the rest of your planned activities for that session. You could teach a few of the exercises each week or two until the students have learned them all. I would suggest that you start with sipping water, Brain Buttons, Cross Crawl, and Hook-ups. These are exercises that seem to be helpful with general stimulation of learning skills. In Brain Gym, though not in the “Brain Gym” book, they are referred to as the PACE activities which help students to get into their appropriate learning pace. The other exercises, while there is “bleed over” between many learning skills they tend to be helpful with, are targeted at more specific learning skills.
After your students have learned the basic 26 exercises you could start each warm up session with the PACE exercises and then allow your students to pick a couple more of the exercises they are attracted to that day to do on their own. Students tend to be attracted to the exercises that are helpful to them. If you want the class to be calmly alert at the end of the warm up session in preparation for receiving instructions or other organizational tasks I suggest doing the Hook-ups then. It may also be helpful to the classroom teacher(s) you are sending your students to after your class if you do the Hook-ups at the end of class.
If I can be of further assistance please let me know.
Best Wishes,
Dave Saunders
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2008 07:09AM by edukfd10001.
