Minds in Motion Activities

Students can practice the same activities this summer that they have been doing in school.  The activities are listed below.

STRONG ARM PUSH:  Students stand facing a wall.  One leg is bent closest to the wall and the other leg is stretched out straight.  Then, push against the wall with the palms of your hands.  Push with as much force as possible for a count of ten.  This will help in developing fine motor control in handwriting and finger usage.  It will also help to focus the eyes on a sentence on the chalkboard.

BEAN BAG BOOGIE:  Students throw and catch a beanbag starting with a 2-hand catch and always being encouraged to follow the bag with their eyes.  They will progress through several skill levels of throwing and catching.  This will help develop eye-hand coordination, focusing, and eye tracking.  It will help with copying board-to-seat work, and computer work.

EYE TO EYE:  Have an adult stand in front of you and move a pencil with an eraser on it in front of your eyes, approximately 14 inches away.  You should follow the object with your eyes.  The adult will move the pencil in the following pattern:  2 horizontal; 2 vertical; 2 circles clockwise; w circles counterclockwise; and 2 horizontal.  Then, go toward the nose 2 times for convergence training.  This will strengthen eye muscles for eye-tracking.  It will help with fluidity in reading and tracking of digits in math.

JELLY ROLL:  Students need to lay on their sides and roll on a mat on the floor in a predetermined manner.  This is for increasing the students’ ability to know where they are in space and time.  It helps with spatial orientation of an object or a line of print. 

PUPPY DOG CRAWL:  Students crawl on hands and knees down on the floor in a given direction for a specified distance.  This helps integrate both hemispheres of the students’ brains for more organized thought.

CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN:  Students step over hurdles or obstacles of varying height.  This enables students’ eyes to better focus on a page of print…..for example:  differentiating dark shades against lighter shades.

MONSTER MASH:  Students stomp down hard on padded shapes or blocks laid out on the floor in a pattern.  This enables students to walk, stand, sit, etc., in a controlled manner.

“EYE” CAN CONVERGE, CAN YOU?:  Students hold a Beaded String (3 beads affixed to a 4 foot string) in their hand and focus on each differently colored bead one at a time while counting to 10 for each bead.  This is used for aiding students in focusing upon letters and numbers with no double vision….to create a strong SINGLE vision.

JUMPING JACK FLASH:  Students do a standing “broad jump” between two designated lines drawn or taped to the floor.  This helps in perfecting students’ reaction times in problem solving, response time in general, and for judging distances.

CROSS WALK:  Students slowly walk a given distance lifting knees high while touching alternating knees with opposite hands.  This helps develop the spatial concept of laterality in students which will aid them in bringing their hand to the left margin of their paper centered on their desk to begin a written assignment.

BALANCE BOARD BASH:  Students stand on wooden balance boards training their bodies to suspend in balance.  This helps develop limits of stability in maintaining balance in one’s body.

THE BEAM TEAM:  Students walk on long wooden boards (1”X 4” X 12ft.) or (2” X 4” X 12ft.) in a variety of manners to develop balance.  This helps in balance development in students which will alleviate clumsiness and disorganization, such as trouble with… spacing letters and numbers on a line, size constancy of letters, staying between two lines on a paper.

THE ELECTRIC SLIDE:  Students side-step along a designated imaginary “path” keeping their eyes, face, feet and whole body facing forward, but moving sideways by taking a step to the side, then sliding the following foot along until it touches the lead foot.  Halfway through the path, students should turn 180 degrees and continue on, leading with the other foot.  This helps enhance bilateral integration in the brain which will allow students to organize their space and time more efficiently.

STEP BACK:  Students walk “backwards” up a set of stairs holding onto a rail for support.  This helps motor-planning and learning how to do things without looking:  For example, buttoning a coat without looking, walking backwards without looking, etc…

SKIP TO MY LOU, SKIP ON THROUGH:  Students skip down a designated “lane” while swinging their arms cross-laterally in an exaggerated fashion.  This helps enhance brain timing in students, to increase their learning capabilities and to develop essential “motor-planning”.  If a child has to think through a task first instead of performing it automatically, extra energy is expended to accomplish each task.