I drew a sample Lazy 8 on the whiteboard at about her eye level, and handed her the marker, which she took up with her right hand. Lara had never experienced the Lazy 8s activity before. It was at this point that I observed something truly remarkable. First she chose the Thinking Cap, then Space Buttons, and finally Lazy 8s. I invited Lara to select activities from the big Brain Gym movement menu hanging on the wall of my office. How would Lara choose to experience internal alignment today? Now that I have almost 15 years of experience as an Edu-K instructor, there's one thing I know for sure: children cannot achieve any kind of alignment in their writing that they cannot experience in their body. Throughout the 23 years I taught elementary school, I would remind children again and again about proper handwriting, and yet certain letter formation and spacing habits persisted. Her letters were inconsistent in size: some tall letters, like “h,” were the same height as shorter letters, like “m,” and some floated off the line. She labored over each word still, her letters had inconsistent spacing – big spaces between letters within some words, and no spaces between some of the words. I invited her to write a sample sentence. She said it was “hard” and she was “too slow” in her writing. Lara, eight years old, had arrived at my office for her second Brain Gym® session, this time choosing to improve her handwriting. I was incredibly privileged today: I got to watch learning happen.
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