Fall 2008

Ideas For A S.M.A.R.T. Classroom by Cindy Harvey

Are you trying to fit in a few minutes of eye movement, eye teaming, and near/far focus activities every day? We’ve seen them done in many ways - to start the day, as a warm up before reading, while kids are waiting in lines, as a brief transition break. S.M.A.R.T. teachers are creative teachers so we know you’ll come up with other ways as well!

Have you been able to integrate some auditory activities into your reading curriculum and lessons? Typical primary reading lessons have some Auditory Discrimination, Auditory Closure, and Sound Blending. By tweaking them and adding more INPUTS they will be more brain friendly for auditory stimulation and improve phonemic awareness, reading and spelling.

Do you think about using some S.M.A.R.T. instructional strategies as you decide the methods to use for introducing, reviewing or practicing the academic content in your curriculum and standards? Here’s a quick review of five S.M.A.R.T. strategies to think about as you plan:

INPUT, INPUT, INPUT – giving MANY, MANY INPUTS long before going to the OUTPUT stage. Kids’ brains learn in the INPUT mode, not in the OUTPUT stage.
NUMBER/LEARNING LADDERS – Remember, Movement Anchors Learning. Anything you want kids to learn can be put on ladders with an added movement (e.g., rebounder, ball bouncing/tossing, bean bag tossing/moving, jumping, etc.)
ENVIRONMENT – Remember that VARIETY and CHALLENGES change the brain. If the environment is complex, with new and unexpected positive events, the brain will be active and stimulated. If the environment becomes too routine, the brain merely adapts and operates automatically, using the cells which have been wired for adequacy, and there will not be a need for more dendrite and myelin growth.
MUSIC – Use music to welcome, gain or re-gain attention, background work music, energy/movement breaks, for faster transitions, clapping out words or math facts, dismissal, etc. Try for about 30% of the day to include music. You can easily set and change the mood of a classroom with music!
NUTRITION – (“Huh,” you say, “an instructional strategy?”) Yes, nutrition really is an instructional strategy. When children have sufficient hydration (easy access to water anytime) and healthy snacks when they need more glucose and energy, their brains function better to take on academic learning.

HAVE A S.M.A.R.T. YEAR!!!