Hammers, and Pancakes, and Sticks, Oh My!

We have already learned that music stimulates endorphins, but when we combine music with certain movements, we affect our brain in another way.

The science behind all this involves how the brain works. Visual imagery (decoding letters to read words) and spatial abilities inhabit the right side of the brain while language and speech reside in the left side. So in application, our ability to recognize letters and words depends on the right side of our brain, and the ability to make sense out of those letters lies in the left side.  When the path between the two cortexes of the brain maintains a fluid route, synergy occurs and optimal reading is attained.  Wow!  And we just wanted to get some energy out of them!

Again I go back to Sunday School to the song about the wise man and the foolish man. As children sang, “The wise man built his house upon the rock,” they made hammer motions back and forth crossing their bodies, flipping their vertical fists like hammers.  The motion was two fold: Back and forth left to right, and inverting fists to alternate positions from top to bottom. They were creating an inter-neural freeway between the left and right side of the brain!  The good news is hammers can be performed to the rhythm of any song. How about “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad?”

What about some pancakes?  Have children flip pretend pancakes back and forth in rhythm as they sing their songs. One hand is the pancake, the other the griddle.  Make sure they cross the body left to right, then right to left as they flip their hands horizontally with two slaps on each side.  (Loud slaps are optional, but it makes it fun.)

Rhythm sticks can be purchased or made out of dowel rods.  If you haven’t seen them before, they have about a ¾ inch diameter, and they are about a foot long.  Have children tap sticks twice, then cross them from side to side, switching the top stick as they go from left to right.  Hap Palmer’s Rhythms on Parade is a great CD for movement with music.

Forging those paths in the brain will create a super highway of learning as visual imagery and spatial abilities integrate with language and speech.  Voila! Optimum learning potential!

This is the School Marm,

 Ringing her bell  
School's out!