Young children NEED to move to learn.

Teachers work hard to keep students engaged in learning. Props, manipulatives or even 'surprise' bags with materials hidden inside are just a few strategies I use to create interest and to help maintain attention in a classroom of young students. Supporting the growth of children's attention spans by finding ways to keep them engaged has always been a classroom goal.

Over the years I have learned a tremendous amount about developing young children's attention spans and especially regarding the development of listening skills. It has been a challenging lesson, one which is often at odds with what I learned during my practicum and from every day life experiences: Just because a child isn't looking doesn't mean they aren't listening, and just because a child is wiggling doesn't mean they aren't engaged.

At a recent trip to a movie theatre, (my nephew and I saw 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'), I periodically looked away from the screen and took a look around the theatre. What did I see? People appeared engaged and actively listening, but few were sitting still. One person was jiggling his leg, someone else was rocking back and forth in the big theatre style seat. Others moshed on popcorn and more seemed to change sitting positions often. It was very apparent that there was a lot of movement for a group who were supposed to be listening.

In my classroom, I have a 'fidget basket' for children who need to have something to do so that they can listen. I admit, I continue to work on finding ways to use the materials in the basket without interrupting the attention of others, but I know that children need to be allowed to move. 

I read several education related books this summer (and lots of poolside fiction too!) One of the books I read is called 'Spark: New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John J. Ratey.

"Learning and memory evolved in concert with

the motor functions that allowed our ancestors to track down

food. So far as our brains are concerned, if we're not moving,

there's no real need to learn anything."

I think that say's it all. We need to move to learn. At e.p.i.c. School, our day begins with assembly. Even though there is listening, there is also active participation and movement incorporated into the beginning of the school day. The idea is to wake children up, rev their bodies and get everyone ready for active learning.

"Exercise improves alertness, attention and motivation and is brain food, 

stimulating newer cells in the hippocampus."

Physical breaks during circle time provide a great opportunity to keep children engaged because they aren't sitting too long. When giving children the chance to move, I love to incorporate smart moves such as touching an elbow to the opposite knee, which helps with organization as well. 

Last year, while working at a literacy fair, I met a teacher who worked with children with reading disabilities and he was adamant that children needed to sit still and be quiet in order to learn. I can only wonder how much better those students would have done had they had a teacher who gave them movement breaks, who incorporated movement into their learning activities and respected that they needed to move in order to learn? Perhaps I will meet up with him again this year, and just maybe, with a bit more science-based information in my back pocket, I can convince him to allow his students to move.

My First Blog Post

Here we go! My first ever blog post. I admit I set up a blog page a few years ago but failed to follow through. It is intimidating to write anything after following favourite bloggers such as Teacher Tom. Ah well, learning is all about taking risks right? So here goes a new learning experience for me, writing for others via a blog.

For my first posting, I want to share a first teaching experience. I have been teaching for more than 20 years now (and am amazed at how quickly those years have added up) but this was a pivotal moment, an important learning experience that has served as a good reminder when teaching young children.
 
Learning to manage a class of 30 children was new to me and the computer that someone had loaned our classroom provided a great way to occupy students and create some quiet moments in a busy room. The program, it's name long forgotten, was an ideal program to prepare students who had little rural experience for a class trip to a farm.  It had these cute little pigs on the screen, and I had thought, they looked more realistic than cartoonish.

To the farm and straight into the barn we went. The guide began by asking the children to name each animal she pointed to before we did anything else. She pointed to the horses, and the children identified the horses, she pointed to the cows and the children knew they were called cows. After naming typical farm animals she pointed to the last of the animals and .... silence.

30 students and not one knew what the animals in the pen were called! How could that be? We had read stories teaching us about farm animals, talked about what the animals ate and what their babies were called, and we even had a computer program that was filled with facts about them. I was stunned. Why didn't my students know what these animals were? The reason was simple. They weren't cute. They didn't say oink, oink as they did in the stories. They certainly weren't pink, and they were HUGE. This was a pivotal moment for me. My very own concrete learning experience. My students didn't know they were pigs because my students had no experience with these big, smelly creatures and they certainly didn't match up with any concept of a 'pig' presented in the classroom. Telling and seeing isn't enough if you don't have the experience to build on.

This year, my goal is to commit to more hands on learning experiences, and yes, even a few more classroom experiences a la 'Teacher Tom'.