Brain exercises

   There seems to be a lot of emphasis on physical exercise and I think that's great.  Only lately have we heard about exercising our brains.  As us baby boomers advance in age, we're learning that doing things that stimulate our brains keep us mentally sharp.  As a teacher, I wanted to have my students learn strategies to be observant and aware of details. Here are a couple ways I tried to expand those mental connections.
   One of the ways we would "exercise", was by using various cards with shapes on them.  I would have 10 cards with increasingly complex shapes and difficulty.  We would have a sample to make sure everyone was aquainted with the activity.  The sample would have, maybe 2 dots and 3 wavy lines.  I would display it for 5 seconds and then take it away.  The students would have to draw the figure from memory.  After 1-2 minutes, I would disply the figure and they would judge if they copied it correctly.  Almost everyone was able to copy the sample.  
   The emphasis was on learning from your mistakes and participating in the activity.  Everyone that participated received something - stickers, extra points, a homework waiver - something.  Before that actual activity started, we would discuss various strategies to use.  Many kids tried to look at the shape, draw a little and look back.  We talked about how this wasn't the best method because you lost valuable observation time.  Looking at the whole shape and making connections with prior knowledge seemed to be a good method.  For instance, part of the shape might look like an animal or a number.  Using that connection brought better results than looking up and down.  It was very interesting which students were good at this task and was fun at the same time.
   I also used word find puzzles to get students thinking.  We discussed clues that might help find the words (double consonants, unusual letters or blends).  Again, some of the students who had academic issues, did very well with this activity.  Sometimes I would have one student give clues to another in order to find the words.  It was a great way to start  the day and get those thinking juices flowing.
   Besides helping the students to be more analytical, it also helped them with certain behaviors.  We talked a lot about dealing with frustration, how people learn differently and cooperating with each other.  If we had a few minutes at the end of a lesson, we could pull out these activities instead of losing precious learning time.
   I'm sure that all of you do certain things in your classrooms to stimulated and engage your students.  Why not share your ideas with each other?  One of these activities may be the one bright spot someone remembers from their school days.  Wouldn't that be great?