Dooley Noted: 3/19/2016
My new friend and second grade teacher, Amanda Meiser, assigns breathing drills throughout the day to help her students learn.
She got the idea from one of her students to use an app called “AirTime Space.”
When her students are bouncing off the walls, she uses the app to help the children focus on their breathing and movement.
“I use it to calm kids down and to help them focus. It makes the hyper children calm, and it makes unfocused children focus. The breathing helps them focus on themselves so they are not as distracted. They are more confident to learn what I am about to teach.”
Amanda includes brain gym exercises she calls “brain-ercises.” She understands their minds and bodies need to move.
Instead of barking at a rambunctious class, she allows the kids to request breathing and movement breaks. They raise their hands and ask for a stretch break. She requests they ask for permission for appropriate timing.
She found a link to learning difficulty and a lack of physical activity.
“I found out my students couldn’t skip! It used to be only kids skipped. Now even the kids can’t skip!”
If kids are not developing gross motor skills, they inhibit their brains from learning at the best capacity. By keeping kids in the classroom plugging away all day, we steal from them development of advanced thinking patterns.
By taking these breaks to help them move and connect, it actually makes the time more efficient for learning new things.
If you were skipping taking important movement and breeding breaks, you were actually stealing the ability to learn from yourself.
Whether it’s for a child or an adult, consider checking out this app.
Taking an occasional breathing break or movement break may be just what you need not to break down.
As always, it’s your call.
-Dr. Kathy Dooley