Conferences - Thank you to everyone for attending conferences. I really enjoy speaking with parents and finding out more about the students I work with.
Body Breaks and Brain Gym - Students engage in body breaks and Brain Gym exercises everyday for 3-5 minutes midway through class. The research behind the benefits of these exercises can be found on my BlendSpace on the home page. Below is one example of a body break. Just Dance from Wii and calesthenics are helpful for a number of cognitive reasons as well as staying physically fit. For more videos please visit the Photo Gallery tab.
Body Breaks and Brain Gym - Students engage in body breaks and Brain Gym exercises everyday for 3-5 minutes midway through class. The research behind the benefits of these exercises can be found on my BlendSpace on the home page. Below is one example of a body break. Just Dance from Wii and calesthenics are helpful for a number of cognitive reasons as well as staying physically fit. For more videos please visit the Photo Gallery tab.
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Social Studies Update - Students were given a copy of the Ch. 7 Test (A Golden Ticket) on the United States at the beginning of the unit last week. Throughout the year I have been introducing students to strategies they should be using to become stronger learners. "Brain Priming" is the strategy we used with the test. Two periods were spent talking about their background knowledge regarding the test questions and marking up the text. We coded the document with symbols such as "RTFO" (Read to Find Out) and I modeled the process of elimination to narrow the choices for the multiple choice questions. As we move through the sections I have been pointing out the correlation between the test questions and the section summary questions as well as other pertinent information on the test. Many students don't read the text and wonder where the test questions come from. I am hoping this will become evident after this chapter. Ch. 7 Test will be Wednesday, December 18th.