IMAGINE THAT! Hello Weather Week 10

FOUNDATIONS OF LEARNING

Hearing and Listening: Hearing and Listening are quite different. Hearing is a process involving nerves and muscles that reach adult efficiency by age four to five. Listening is a learned behavior, a mental process that is concerned with hearing, attending discriminating, understanding, and remembering. It can be improved with practice. Listening affects social interactions, one’s level of functioning, and perhaps one’s overall success in life.

Self Esteem: Self esteem is enhanced through sharing movement ideas with others. “ To come to know our own special genius is a lifetime process. A significant manifestation of this specialness is… finding our own dance. Out of movement exercises, a holistic learning environment evolves, one which is supportive of the attitude that each of us is appreciated, acknowledged, and respected for who we are.”

Cross Lateral Movement: While children will readily fall into scraping and tapping sandblocks to a steady beat pattern, they will also be working on cross-lateral movement if they play their sandblocks at the midline and on either side of their bodies. Establishing cross-lateral mobility is crucial to success in reading, which requires that the eyes travel laterally across the page, past the midline of the body.

Affiliation: The capacity to join others and contribute to the group springs from one’s ability to form attachments. Affiliation is the glue for healthy human functioning. It allows people to form and maintain relationships with others – to create something stronger, more adaptive and more creative than the individual. Affiliation is one of the six core strengths which children need to develop in order to become more humane. The child without these strengths will be in greater danger of becoming violent and also less able to cope with verbal or physical abuse.