Friday, February 27, 2009

Let's Get Physical!

...with spelling and vocabulary words.

And so we did.

Outside.

In our Finally it's Friday teams.

By pairing physical activity with an intellectual activity, the chances of the intellectual aspects remaining in a person's memory will be that much higher because both the brain and the body are working in tandem. We have mind memory, but we also have muscle memory.

I can vouch for this. When learning lines for a play or studying for tests I had to take in college, there was nothing that worked better than pairing almost any kind of physical activity with the lines I had to learn or the information I had to take in.

This is also a good way for Sixth Graders to shake up their day, channel their energy and prepare for their big vocabulary/spelling test on Tuesday.

Running, combined with spelling, searching and team-work all meshed to create a spelling and vocabulary game that kept the students active and alert (and hopefully helped them go over just a few words on their study guide list).

Best to all for a wonderful weekend. Enjoy the weather!

Cheers,
Ms. Pitman