This exercise can be practised on paper too.Children should focus on their thumb while drawing.Use your right thumb to draw a sideways 8 or infinity symbol in the air.It enhances the child’s attention and mental coordination.This exercise improves communication between the right and left hemispheres of the brain and helps in higher level reasoning (critical thinking, problem solving etc).Make sure that the movements are slow and accurate, and not rushed through. Similarly lift the right knee, and touch the right knee using the left elbow or hand.Lift the left knee, and touch the left knee using the right elbow or hand (crossing the midline of body).Here then are 7 exercises that will help make kids smarter! Cross crawls They are generally fun movements that are designed to engage and activate the brain.Īnd yes, these exercises can benefit adults too! These exercises are short and easy activities teachers or parents can do with children, to release stress and enhance learning. Paul Dennison, created these series of Brain Gym® movements to directly target and stimulate the brain, and help a child reach her potential. These exercises are known as brain gym exercises.ĭr. Some extremely simple exercises can boost brain function and make kids sharper, smarter and much more confident.
Occupational Therapist, healing facilitator, certified infant massage instructor, freelance writer, author of “Healing Your Life Through Activity – An Occupational Therapist’s Story” and co-author of “Tuvia Finds His Freedom”.The mind and the body are more related than we think. The rhythmic movement of drawing or moving in a figure eight is a wonderful addition to your toolbox for assisting clients in need of stress management and improving relaxation. I mentioned earlier the benefit of improving a sense of calm. Note, I am not sufficiently familiar with other alphabets to know how well they can be used in the Alphabet 8. It’s designed for English letters but, with some creativity and practice, cursive letters for Hebrew can also be used.
The Alphabet 8 incorporates lower-case letters with the Lazy 8 and is wonderful as a pre-writing activity to enhance work to meet writing goals. Once clients are familiar with the Lazy 8 through either Trace the 8s or Race the 8s, introducing the Alphabet 8 helps improve their motor memory. It also provides an added level of professionalism, which is important for anyone who is skeptical of either how Brain Gym combines with OT or the extent to which OT itself is a recognized profession. The development of these tools shows how Brain Gym is becoming accepted as a beneficial modality to use within OT. I am delighted to discover that Therapro has a range of products that bring the figure eight into practice for all occupational therapists. When I first began using components of Brain Gym in my treatment sessions, I would often make up my own worksheets. upgrade further to doing cross crawls while walking a figure eight.upgrade to carrying out the cross crawl while walking on a straight line.having the client carry out their cross crawl while standing until they are sufficiently at ease with the exercise.This often has to be carried out in stages: Make it more fun by having the client clap while moving around the figure of eight in time to music.įor added motor integration, combine the cross crawl with the Lazy 8. Varying the space between the hoops elongates or enlarges the figure eight. I love to use two hoops placed side by side on the floor to provide a visual cue. The Lazy 8 can also be carried out as a motor activity, having the client walk, skip, or run around a figure eight. It can be used in several different formats – using the eyes, drawing the figure of 8 in the appropriate orientation, and in motion, as we shall see shortly. The repeated action of the Lazy 8 is also very calming. It can be used to improve ocular motor function, which assists with reading, and crossing the mid-line improves integration between the two hemispheres of the brain. In Brain Gym terms, the Lazy 8 turns on or activates the eyes while also crossing the mid-line. One that I use a lot is the Lazy 8 – a figure eight that lies on its side like the infinity sign. Although there is a specific process to follow, many of the exercises are both beneficial and transferable into a regular OT session. I began with Brain Gym I and II and loved the fact that the two trainers in South Africa were experienced occupational therapists trained in both SI and NDT.īrain Gym is wonderful for assisting with goal setting, whole brain learning, stress release, and re-patterning. Little did I know that it would become an integral part of much of my OT practice. I came across Educational Kinesiology in the early 1990s when searching for tools or techniques to help healing from a chronic illness.
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