Brain Gym and Break States

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• Brain Gym and Break States

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Brain Buttons Exercise

• Rub your Brain Buttons with the thumb and first
  finger of one hand. (Youll find these buttons
  at the soft spot under your collarbone)
• As you rub them, move your eyes (not your head)
  slowly up and down, i.e. tracking where the
  ceiling meets the wall to where the floor meets
  the wall, then left to right and right to left.
• While you rub your brain buttons, place the first
  finger and middle finger of your other hand over
  your navel
• Rest your tongue against the roof of your mouth
  and think of something nice.

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Break States/ Brain GymOutcomes of this session

• You will
• Understand the rationale for using Brain Gym
• Understand how to use break states, and brain gym
  activities in school
• have the opportunity to practise some brain gym
  activities
• Know how to access further information about
  brain gym.

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Cross Crawl

• Standing, begin to march in time
• Raise your knees, and alternately touch each knee
  with the opposite hand
• Progressively move your elbows to each knee in
  sequence.
• When done slowly this exercise requires fine
  motor involvement and balance. Research shows
  that cross crawl improves co-ordination, visual
  auditory and kinaesthetic ability and can improve
  listening, writing and memory.

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Names in the Air

• With your preferred hand write out your full name
  in the air, using large movements. Do it forwards
  and backwards
• Now use your other hand to write your name with
  both hands simultaneously.(If you are right
  handed start in the centre and work out. If you
  are left handed start at the outside and work in
• Try this several times before going on to another
  name or word
• Do it again but this time with eyes closed.

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Names in the Air

• You can use this activity to help learn key
  words, difficult spellings numbers or formulae
• This is a left and right brained activity which
  activated hand-eye co-ordination and assists
  eye-teaming across the visual mid-line. It helps
  establish directionality and orientation in space.

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Movement and Physical Activity

• Strengthens heart and muscles
• Improves the flow of blood to the brain and
  increases the connections between neurons
• Aids integration of learning and construction of
  meaning
• Allows full body-mind integration

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Unless learners are in the appropriate learning
state, its time to stop everything and start
changing their states

• E. Jenson Completing the puzzle A Brain based
  approach to Learning.

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Tension Relievers

• Take a long deep breath through the nose
• Hold for 2-3 seconds
• Exhale slowly though the mouth, relaxing the jaw
  and shoulder muscles and breathing away tension
• Repeat several times

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Alphabet Edit

• Read the letters of the alphabet aloud as a small
  class or group whilst completing the accompanying
  action
• Instructions l is a left arm raise, r is a right
  arm raise and t is both arms together

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Alphabet chart
A B C D E F G l t r r t t l H I J K L M N l r t t
r l l O P Q R S T U t t l r t r r V W X Y Z t l
l l r
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Hook ups

• Sitting, put one ankle over the other one
• Extend your arms with the back of the hands
  together and thumbs pointing down
• Lift one hand over the other,palms facing and
  interlace your fingers
• Roll the interlocked hands straight down and in
  towards the body so that they eventually rest on
  the chest with the elbows down
• rest your tongue on the roof of your mouth behind
  the teeth
• Sit like this for 1 minute , breathing deeply
  with your eyes closed

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Brain Gym and Break States

• Are an effective way of changing the physical and
  mental states of the learners in your class
• Involve physical and mental activity
• Connect left and right brain and help to improve
  motor co-ordination.

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Regular use of Brain Gym can

• Alleviate stress
• improve eye-hand co-ordination
• improve concentration on focussed activities
• quicken the response time to visual stimuli.