From Sleep to Science
A How-To Guide to Prepare Your Child's Brain For School
Wake Up With A Fresh Start!
Start the day of with some music or movement to help jumpstart the brain for the day. Activities such as SuperBrain Yoga help to improve thinking and mental function. SuperBrain Yoga uses pressure points and breathing to balance the two hemispheres of the brain. This calming activity in the morning will help to focus your child and prepare them emotionally for the day.
See the quick video below on some yoga moves you can use with your child! You can also read more about how SuperBrain Yoga helps the brain at: https://parentingspecialneeds.org/article/a-simple-yoga-exercise-to-build-brain-power/
Start The Day With A Nutritious Meal!
- Limit calories and saturated fat. Research shows that diets high in saturated fat (from sources such as red meat, whole milk, butter, cheese, cream, and ice cream) increase your risk of dementia and impair concentration and memory.
- Eat more fruit and vegetables. Produce is packed with antioxidants, substances that protect your brain cells from damage. Colorful fruits and vegetables are particularly good antioxidant "superfood" sources.
- Drink green tea. Green tea contains polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that protect against free radicals that can damage brain cells. Among many other benefits, regular consumption of green tea may enhance memory and mental alertness and slow brain aging.
What we put in our bodies for breakfast has a direct impact on our cognitive abilities during the day. There is a direct link to nutritional deficiency with decreased test scores, cognition, and general learning ability (Jensen, 2005).
Get To Know Your Child Better!
- You Are Getting To Know Your Child: How better to know your child, then to ask them about what they are doing for the day. With our middle schoolers we worry about their school and their social life during their time at Talley. Get involved by asking them what activities, trips, assignments, etc they have planned to better stay involved and informed in their life.
- You Are Working On Their Listening And Language Skills: Communication is a large player in how we learn new words, express our thoughts and opinions and process information. To be a good listener, your child must pay attention to facial expressions, hand gestures, and other body language in order to formulate a proper response. This conversation process helps to jumpstart the brain first thing in the morning.
- You Are Helping Them Develop Their Executive Functions: This sounds very complex. It isn't. This is the ability to enable goal-oriented behavior such as the ability to plan and execute a goal. These can be met with concepts like anticipation, problem solving, decision making, working memory, and emotional self-regulation. By holding a conversation with your child about what they learned the day before or what they will do today is a great way to get their brain thinking.
- You Are Building A Strong Relationship With Your Child: Research shows that having meaningful friendships and a strong support system are vital not only to emotional health, but also to brain health. In one recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health, for example, researchers found that people with the most active social lives had the slowest rate of memory decline.
Learn more below: www.helpguide.org
Keep It Light
Brain Teasers: http://www.internet4classrooms.com/brain_teasers.htm
Funny Brain Teasers: http://www.everythingmom.com/parenting/45-riddles-and-brain-teasers-for-kids
Riddles for Teens: http://brainden.com/logic-riddles.htm
Jokes for Everyone:
Talley Middle School
Email: ashley.ferraro@bsd.k12.de.us
Website: http://www.brandywineschools.org/Domain/944
Location: 1110 Cypress Road, Wilmington, DE, United States
Phone: 3024753976