students sleuth this

My students studied the picture (BELOW) after our exercises today. It was in the Activate book each received. It was not one of their exercise ideas as. As they spoke their hunches I wrote as fast as I could. Here was their responses.  Double click on image to enlarge

What ?

Tell me what THIS is

 

XA: Looks like lungs.

 

XB: I think it has to do with compression.

 

XC: Looks like wires that connect and overlap and go to somewhere else. It seems like you are doing a Cross Crawl and spinning in circles while doing it.

 

XD: Maybe it is nerves in our body. Cords that attached to your body parts. Circles are pads that cause the part of you to move.  

 

XE: It looks like the circle of the hip starts at the head and ends at the jaw connects to elbow wrist.

 

XF: This is showing you the inside body parts and the nerves. If we didn't have these we would fall on the floor saying: "What do we do?"

 

XF: It is the brain and its abilities. You might not see it on there, but it is there.

 

XG: Looks like lines of snakes for you stretch to get wiggles out.

 

XH: The part a picture of your signals. What you might use in brain gym.

 

XI: These are nerves of what we do in brain gym.

 

XI: In our brain there are little people with files with paper. They tell the knees to curl up in our exercise and send emails to the others of what to do. Just like a math book, we have a book in our brain that we get knowledge from.

 

My prayer was answered this morning. Wonderful thoughts and hunches. Good job class.



for my students - book project complete

 

The past month I have hunkered down to LAY OUT the "year end book" for my students at Field School. It was a tradition I carried out for all three school terms (The Challenge 2004, What's Going On? 2005, and Motion Puzzles 2006) for my OT students at Root and Dietrich and High School and Adams in Carrollton. Because this year was a new school in another city and a fresh start to a familiar subject,  I re-examined WHAT I wanted the compilation TO SAY. My OT (occupational therapy) heroes were all back-- Dr. Paul E. Dennison, Athena Oden (physical therapist) and the neuro-physiologist Carla Hannaford. My waking prayer: breathe on the pages. That breath came, that direction evident. Each step answered. 
Double click on pictures to enlarge.

The dinette table used for cutting and inking woodcuts was cleared for the project. Evenings and weekends were spent sorting through previous drawings, deciding on which would come first, which would follow, which would not be included this time around, and which ideas required novel introduction. The hand lettered illustrations were drawn first on folded legal size bond paper. Finally the pages were taped in sequence with Scotch invisible tape on 8 1/2 by 14 inch sheets, folded in half, SO THAT that both sides could be copied on the office copy machine. The 76 page volume has a card stock cover, front and back, and a plastic loose-leaf spine (also called comb binding, or cerlox binding).

      Example of double sided "section" here.

          

Cerlox binding on spine 

For two days -- after I clocked out of work, I made the xerox copies needed. The routine went like this: a two page spread was xeroxed in twenty copies. The pages were gathered out of the upper tray, jogged on the table to make the stack even, and then set in the lower tray to xerox the backside two page spread, twenty copies. Staying on alert for errors, misprints, and making corrections or re-xeroxing said pages. There were twenty-four sections xeroxed back-to-back. Each of section was hand folded down the middle, which made four pages of content.

The sections were stacked in sequential piles on a large table, double and triple checked that the order was right. Then, you grabbed the last section, stepped to the left, grabbed the next section under that, stepped to the left, grabbed the next section under that, and so forth. My wife and I did this kind of hand-collating back when we were attending the California Lutheran Bible Institute (Anaheim) and worked after school at the bindery (click on video link and scroll down to see what hand collating can look like).

The card stock covers were hole punched TWO at a time for twenty sets. The paper book sections were hole punched FOUR at a time, twenty sets. The manual comb binding device had an arm bar you pulled forward, which spread the plastic comb binding curl apart. The hole punched book was carefully loaded in thirds, so that the fingers of the curl reached through the holes. Once loaded, the arm bar was pushed back, the comb curled and held the spine fast. One book complete. Load the next, and the next, and so forth.

Comb binding on spine

 

Student ideas in book

(video link to Styrofoam tray)

?? WHAT ??

Activate by Mr.M (long version) Six minute video.

Sneak peak. DOUBLE CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE



The books were handed out Friday and the students were delighted.

A book review worksheet will be completed in class next week. Our classes break for summer the last week in May. I plan to post some of them.
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(Comb binding links courtesy of ABC Office and Wikipedia,http://www.abcoffice.com/office-equipment-news/2011/10/is-cerlox-binding-and-comb-binding-the-same/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comb_binding, accessed may 18, 2013. Collate video link, http://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/uld/art/papers.htm, collate diagram courtesy of Tech-ni-fold, 
http://www.technifoldusa.com/bindery-success-blog/bid/75802/Hand-Collating-in-the-Bindery-Hazardous-to-Your-Health, accessed May 18, 2013)

test it please

My third graders have just finished all five brain gym exercises and compressions. There are a few minutes left to work on a motion puzzle. They have been practicing on one with a cardboard track and a ping pong ball with holes in it.The puzzle promotes eye and hand coordination.

 As with all my puzzles I practice them myself first. If I can do it my students will be successful themselves.

Watch Cardboard Track and Ball puzzle on video. Two minutes.

      After hauling this styrofoam tray around in my truck cab, I shared it with my students. I asked what they thought it was made of. Was it metal? No. Was it plastic? No. Was it heavy? No. I rolled the ball down two sides of the tray to plant the idea.  "What do you think?" I ask each. "Can it work? Test it for me, please." And they do.
     Two students have to sit down to do it. Most can tilt the tray with their two hands so that the ball rolls around once. Two passes around seems to be a threshold. So, the next time we meet, I have each tilt the tray so that the ball passes around two times and then as many times as they choose after that. All of them have gotten better at it.
     It is tricky because there are two big holes in the tray and it is easy for the ball to fall to the floor. This tray promotes eye and hand coordination.
     Now that they have acquired the focus needed and the ball is controlled. What else can they make it do? The students are becoming inventors. They try out a hunch. Test it out, trial and error. Sometimes it doesn't work as easy as they thought. Two students came up with ideas I hadn't thought of. I was pleased. Do they have a name in mind for the puzzle they discovered? I listen to their ideas.

Two minute video

 

This next week I will have each try the boards. It is a balance puzzle. And yes, I have been trying it myself. The thing is, if I can plant an idea, of course keeping it safe and do able. What might they come up with--as they master it?

 

Two minute video

 

The students I am assigned to need the brain gym exercises to get the right and left sides of their brains working together. I tell them that the exercises are designed to make the body want to fall over. The brain tries to over ride the fall.

Paul E. Dennison coined the term "brain gym."

 

My class does both Hook Ups and the Cross Crawl.

 

You can see what my students have come up with on my Motion Puzzle blog.

 

"Welcome to Motion Puzzles where students have created, tested, and named their own exercises. Balance is challenged. The left and right side of the brain sends emails back and forth, "NO NO, DO NOT TIP OVER!!"

(courtesy of Teacher Tube, http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=27736, http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=27736; and About.com, http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=27736, accessed Oct 21, 2012)