Wholeness Healing Center

Brain Gym Part 2

This is the second part of the Brain Gym explanation. Last time I discussed the cross crawl patterns and Lazy 8’s. This time I wish to explain double doodles, alphabet 8’s, and the elephant. These are still part of the Midline Movement exercises.

The Double Doodle is similar to the Lazy 8’s in that it is done in the midfield “to establish direction and orientation in space relative to the body”. This exercise will improve hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, help in following direction and decoding and encoding of written symbols. This exercise involves the child using both hands and making “doodling marks”, or a free-form scribble. The child could use two pieces of chalk, one in each hand, or pencils or scarves, or just “air doodle”. And expansion is even doodling with the feet. As the visual convergence improves, academic performance will often improve.

Another exercise that is similar is the Alphabet 8’s and involves printing lower case letters from a through t. Each letter is superimposed on either one side or the other. This exercise, while helping to improve handwriting, will also increase peripheral awareness, improve eye-hand coordination, and aid in symbol recognition. It will also work to improve fine-motor skills, spelling, and creative writing. Other benefits may be greater relaxation and improved concentration while writing.

The elephant exercise utilizes the Lazy 8 figure. This is a larger version and actually requires more movement. The child follows the large Lazy 8 while standing with knees comfortably bent without twisting the body or moving the head. This should help improve listening comprehension, speech, spelling, and memory for sequences, as well as thinking ability, depth perception, binocular vision, and coordination of upper body and lower body.

Both the Brain Gym book and the Teacher’s Edition are available for purchase at the Life’s Garden stores in both office locations. The books have easy-to-follow illustrations and directions for getting your child started. I will discuss some of the other exercises in following newsletters.

 

Tags: brain gym lazy 8's, double doodles, midline movement exercises