My Quivers Full - Finally!! That Right Brain Post

May. 8, 2008 - Finally!! That Right Brain Post

Yes, I said I would do this a while ago but then kept getting busy with other things to blog about. Finally though, I'm getting to it :) This is going to be a whopper of a post. I hope you have a while to read! What does is mean, right brained vs. left brained? It just means that you have a side of your brain that is stronger, everyone does. Which side you use affects how you think, and thus, how you learn best.

At the lecture I went to last fall, the speaker asked a friend to help her demonstrate why right brained kids sometimes are considered "lazy" or the teacher thinks he isn't trying. This friend is a stereotypical right brainer, she even owns a dance studio and gives ballet lessons. This friend was lead thru a minute or so of Brain Gym activities. She was then given the "strong arm" test. She held her arm straight out to the side (horizontal to the floor). The speaker took two fingers and pushed down on her arm firmly. Of course, her arm didn't move. Then, the speaker asked her to complete a few math problems, fractions in particular. She groaned, but complied. She was then given the strong arm test again. She held her arm out straight, but this time when the speaker pressed down on her arm, it dipped. The point was, certain subjects, like math, is more difficult for right brained kids. It physically tires them to do schoolwork all day. Because left brainers aren't like this, and most schoolwork is geared for left brainers, it makes the right brained kids seem lazier, or like they aren't really trying. To prove this wasn't a set up, she had all of us stand up and perform a simple Brain Gym exercise for one minute. We then picked a partner and did the strong arm test on each other. No arms moved. We were then instructed on a "repatterning" exercise that does the same thing that the math did for the friend of the speaker. We did the strong arm test again on our partners. Every arm dipped. We did the Brain Gym exercise again, did the arm test again. No arms dipped. Interesting, no? I'll have a section at the bottom of this post about some specific exercises and a link to some more Brain Gym information.

So, with all that said, here are the differences between a Left Brain person and a Right Brain person:

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Left Brainers:

*Want to know "the plan" for the day, and don't like surprises thrown in.

*Dislike skipping around. Like consistency, structure, and predictability.

*Look for details and facts

*Think guessing and predicting is a waste of time

*Time oriented. This is especially funny with Little Monkey. He wants to know how long until we leave. "5 minutes" I say. He announces to everyone in the area "5 minutes!" He runs back to find out how much longer until we leave. "4 minutes" I say. He announces to everyone in the area "4 minutes!" Repeat until it is time to go. I though I was being smart getting him a watch for Christmas. Now he wants to know what time it will be when we leave. He then watches his watch the whole time announcing as time ticks away.

*Use logic

*Detail oriented

*Facts rule

*Thinks in words and language

*Knows object name

Right Brainers:

*Use feelings

*"Big picture" oriented. Whole-to-parts type of learner.

*Enjoys doing things on the spur of the moment.

*Imagination rules

*Thinks in symbols and images (which is why people who are artisits tend to be right brained)

*Knows object function, but forgets object name regularly.

*Loses track of time, and doesn't have a good concept of time (like he thinks the math lesson has taken and hour, and it's actually taken fifteen minutes)

*Processes things slowly, needing time to have information "click in"

*Can skip around in his work easily.

*Remembers best by starting with recent events ("What did you do today" might not get much of an answer. "What was the last thing you did before I walked in", then working backwards from there will get detailed information)

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So now that you can see the difference in the way a right brained person might think, what does that mean for you as you try to teach these kids?

* Remember: attention span = 2-3 minutes per year (5 year old = 15 minute attention span) This is true for most kids.

*Once his brain is "off", it needs the rest. If he's beginning to struggle take a break from the subject and come back to it another time.

*No two similar subjects back to back, like math & history. The subjects like math, history, or grammar are left brain subjects. Doing more than one of these back to back is very tiring for the right brained kid. Playing classical music while Big Man takes a few minute break running around the room is very revitalizing for him. Or you can take an art break after math.

*To reduce frustration: 85% review, with 15% new material sandwiched in between. We use Abeka math, which is a spiral curriculum with loads of review built in. I think this is why this curriculum has been so successful with Big Man. On the other hand, I knock out quite a bit of review for Little Monkey (a left brainer). Some review is good, a bunch is just bores him. Ditto with history. Going over the last couple of lessons before starting the new one is very helpful for Big Man, Little Monkey doesn't see the point. :)

*Math: Color code place value (blue in ones position, orange in tens position, etc.). Turn lined paper on side to line up columns. Tell a story to illustrate the math fact (Big Man enjoys story problems, Little Monkey dreads them!)

*Time management: If there is a lot of complaining going on about how long things are taking, have him guess how much time he think it will take & then test the guess. He will be shocked. Use timer for a reassurance that a lesson won't go past a certain length (like fifteen minutes). There are timers that are made for very visual people, these are great.

*Give assignments 1 at a time. Big Man starts his schoolwork with Explode the Code and Handwriting. Both of these he does by himself, however he gets flustered if they are both on his desk at the same time. I let him pick which he will do first, and I take the other off his desk until he's ready for it.

*Make lessons interactive, using as many senses as possible. Right brainers tend to love unit studies.

*Use color to draw attention: use a colored index card with the center cut out as a frame around area working on (like around two or three math problems, move the frame when those few problems are done)

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Brain Gym:

The Brain Gym exercises are designed to get the two sides of the brain firing together instead of one side of the brain doing all of the work. The exercises are meant to be done prior to schoolwork. We've incorporated it into our circle time. We focus on crossing the midline exercises. I found it interesting that neither Big Man m(8) nor Little Monkey (5) could cross the midline when we started these exercises. Now they can, but if they aren't paying close attention to what they are doing, they'll begin to keep their movements away from the midline (you'll see what I mean in just a second) What is the midline? Imagine a piece of masking tape stretching from the tip of your nose down to the floor. That is your midline. A crossing the midline exercise is anything that makes one side of your body cross over that line to the other side of your body. This forces the two sides of your brain to work together (left side of brain controls right side of body, right side of brain controls left side of body). You can read more about Brain Gym here. I have the small Brain Gym exercise book mentioned at their site. It's a handy little resource if you're looking for some different exercises than what you would normally do. There are classes you could take, although I understand they are quite costly. I don't know how to add a YouTube clip to the middle of this post, so go here to watch a fun little video filmed of some different Brain Gym classes. Brain Gym isn't all about crossing the midline, but it's what we've been focusing on quite a bit around here. Here are a couple of exercises we do daily:

This one is called the cross crawl, or cross walk. You touch your hand to the opposite knee, going back and forth. This isn't the best picture. You can see how Big Man is beginning to not pay attention to his midline. In this picture his hand and knee are meeting at the midline, instead of his knee coming straight up and his hand going across the midline to meet it. (Apparently he's in his spy disguise here. Just ignore the beautiful wig )

This is called Lazy 8's. It has helped both boys to practice the sideways 8's on the whiteboard, then they can move to "drawing" them in the air with big arm movements. We try to do half of the time with each hand. For instance, if we're counting by 5's up to 100, he'll do up to 50 with the left hand and then switch to the right hand until we reach 100. You can also have both hands going at the same time, either with each hand doing it's respective side, or with both hands working next to each other to form the one 8.

Here, Peanut (3) gets in on the act with streamers. I made these with a cake dowel and crepe paper. I just taped the paper to the stick, so it's easy to repair when the inevitable tears happen. We do the sideways 8's with streamers, or giant circles (making sure the arms cross the midline)