Body Geography - Nature Girl Land

Nature Girl Land

One of our body geography lessons is to do tracings of yourself and then itemize your parts and identify them. This was a tough job for Nature Girl. She avoided getting down to it by making an elaborate game of Nature Girl Land and all those crosses? Those are airplanes. She flitted from part to part. Finally I said " start by identifying your left and right side." (and while it looks reversed - she was right - she was identifying HER parts as we traced them onto the paper.

It took two days of gently prodding for her to label things. We'll return to this one in a couple of months time and I think we'll do it in a less permanent medium - sidewalk chalk!

The rationale behind this exercise is like playing simon says - it helps you identify any issues with left and right, and you also get a clear idea of how in touch they are with their body.

Sensory Integration - Weeding through the Lingo and Finding Good Resources

There's so many BRANDS of programs that deal with the importance of sensory integration in addressing learning disabilities.

Brain Gym
The Extra Lesson
Enki Education's Sensory Integration Program
Ayres
Therapeutic Movement
The SAVE Program (Sensory-motor Auditory Visual Education)

What they all have in common is a belief in the need to look at the whole child and address them as individuals first and then to look at what we all need to have hardwired in to make learning...a comfortable experience.

I have always been drawn to the holistic vision that Waldorf Education is based on. They have almost a hundred years of experience in addressing the needs of children, all children, and their goal is a WHOLE person. Their approach and attitudes towards learning difficulties and differently abled people is amazing.

Over the past 15 years that I've been researching Waldorf Education I've watched the movement become more and more approachable. However when people start digging in to the underlying anthroposophy they're often confounded by the "spiritual science" that is tightly woven into the fabric of their belief in human and planetary potential. I'm finally at a point where I can read Steiner without rolling my eyes in frustration or having an inner voice mocking things as I read along. I understand those that do hear that mocking voice though.

So I was really happy when I found the book Take Time, which is an approachable "accepted" mainstream look at Extra Lesson work. The book was written for parents as well as therapists and there isn't any spiritual science to wade through while you absorb all the practical advise. It's too bad it's so hard to find! It started out as a book by a non-waldorf speech and language pathologist. A few years after it was published she did a revised edition with a curative eurythmist (Waldorf Movement Therapy). Educational books don't often cross international borders and this is a British book. I had to get my copy from the United States! Bob and Nancy's is a great bookstore to deal with though.

Enki Education is, well, simply amazing and if they had packaged curricula for third grade I'd buy it in a heartbeat. They address sensory integration throughout the day. I'm utilizing what I have - their kindergarten materials - and I'll be purchasing their grade 1&2 materials when I can afford to. I find it difficult to take all the technical stuff I've learned regarding movement and turn it into activities we actually want to do without being self conscious about it being "therapy". It is one thing for the curative teacher to get Nature Girl to do exercises for her in an evaluation, it's another thing to seamlessly integrate those movements into our daily life. Enki's materials are just chock full of those exact activities - and they write above every finger rhyme. verse, or game what kind of sensory integration activity it is so you can look at the things you are grouping together and check off that you're hitting all your pointers - tactile, vestibular, balance system, and proprioceptive.

If you find other resources make sure to pass them along!