Monday!
We kicked off this morning with a visit from Pascal Saker, a fab neuro-scientist who really got us excited about how our brains work. 
Meet Nigel the Neuron! Our cheeky mascot for Brain Week made by the very clever Mrs Chao.
Tuesday
Meet Nigel the Neurons crazy neuron family. These are just a few of the 100 billion relatives that he has!
Room 12 showing off their brain caps - nice job!
Room 5 have been busy looking at a brain ap on the ipads that Mr. Saker showed us yesterday
Room 13 have been looking at pictures of dendrites and are making their own triptych dendrite art. It's looking great!
Look at room 7's neuron diagrams and pipe cleaner neurons - they show exactly how a neuron is made up. Great work!
Making neurons with pipe cleaners is a great way for the children to really get a feel for the parts of a neuron and their names.
Hands on stuff done in a fun way like this is a brilliant way to make sure information makes it from the short, to the long term memory.
Some year 4's taking a "brain break" in the fresh air by chalking a volcano hopscotch and having a quick hop! Excellent work girls!
Brain breaks will help you to re-fuel your neurotransmitters. This means that you can send and store the next lot of information in along your neurons much more efficiently. Brain breaks are really important!
Here Room 5 are trying out the Brain Gym double doodle activity where you have to draw two sides of the same picture with both hands. Tricky work but their brains helped them to do a great job!
Click here to check out the Brain Week action in Year 7 and 8 on Room 23's blog!
Room 8 busy with their "discovery rotation" time on Tuesday afternoon. The brain just loves to work with play dough, no matter how old we get!
Room 11 playing a crazy dendrite tag game. The tennis balls were neurotransmitters and the were kids dendrites and electrical impulses. They had to pass the neurotransmitters on to the next dendrite. Lots of running and lots of fun!
Room 12 took their fabulous brains and an ipad outside to photograph some interesting things. Maybe we can post some of the results tomorrow!
Room 6 have really been putting their brains to good use! Here they are using string and making different shapes with different numbers of people.
Room 6 playing a memory game...
Busy making the lobes of the brain from play dough in room 6
Room 3 using happy sticks and doing Brain Gym movements to music
Room 3 busy writing their spelling words on the playground with chalk. The brain just loves it when we do things in a different way!
Room 9 working hard making their brain caps to learn the different lobes of the brain
The fabulous finished product!
Room 9 talking through the different parts of the brain
Room 11 made neurons from winding a loop of string around their hands and performing some tricky moves!
...then they had a rest with some Brain Gym brain breaks
Wednesday!
Watch this video about the brain that room 23 have made, great work!..
Hands on stuff done in a fun way like this is a brilliant way to make sure information makes it from the short, to the long term memory.
Brain breaks will help you to re-fuel your neurotransmitters. This means that you can send and store the next lot of information in along your neurons much more efficiently. Brain breaks are really important!
Click here to check out the Brain Week action in Year 7 and 8 on Room 23's blog!
Wednesday!
Watch this video about the brain that room 23 have made, great work!..
Below room 8 were testing their brains and each other by trying to memorise the alphabet backwards!
Below room 10 are using boxes and their brains to create something special! Learning can be such fun! The finished product of the robot box complete with its own brain looks great!
Year 5 and 6 arts rotation made wall art on paper, cut it out and pasted it to the wall. Eat your heart out Banksy!
Room 9 drawing flowers whilst listening to music...very relaxing for the brain!
Room 4 were testing their reaction times. A friend let go of a ruler and they had to catch hold of it as quickly as possible. Room 4 tried both their right and left hand. They recorded where they caught the ruler by writing down the number between their finger and thumb.
What's happening in our brain when we do this? Well, first, you see the ruler with your eyes. Then, your eye sends a message to the back of the brain to the visual cortex. The visual cortex sends a message to the motor cortex in the middle part of the brain. The motor cortex sends a message down the spinal cord, and the spinal cord sends the message all the way down your arm to the muscles in your fingers. The message tells your finger muscles to contract so you can catch the ruler, and you do! Also, it all happens in an instant! Clever stuff!
Check out Dorrie's and Soren's effort in the great game 'Articulate'. A great way of getting the brain thinking... and its super fun!
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Check out Dorrie's and Soren's effort in the great game 'Articulate'. A great way of getting the brain thinking... and its super fun!
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http://mrdevenports.blogspot.co.nz/2013/06/brain-week-means-brain-games.html
Thursday
Today the children have been watching "...And The Show Is..." a performance telling stories through song. The children joined in with the singing and really got some oxygen up to their brains!
Thank you to our local and educational library contacts for sourcing many wonderful books on the brain for us to learn from. We get to keep them to look at for the rest of the term, not just Brain Week!
A neuron doodle on room 11's whiteboard. Look at all those connections!
Room 14 playing Cluedo, Risk and a tricky word game, all needing some serious brain power. There certainly will have been some new dendrite growth and neural pathway forging in room 14's brains today!
Room 12 have been working hard on their optical illusion art. Fantastic!
Year 7 and 8 have been talking about "brain food". Today they brought in some delicious examples of food that is great for brain health and had a brain feast!
It all looks fantastic. Well done!
Friday!
Room 16 practicing their Brain Gym cross over exercises to get the left and right hemispheres of their brains to communicate!
Room 4 practiced handwriting with their non-dominant hand. Some of them found that they improved in only two days! They talked about how if we want to improve at something we must practice as often as possible. That is called re-wiring your brain.
So that brings us to the end of our fabulous Brain Week learning journey! Thank you to all you wonderful learners that made the place buzz with your enthusiasm. Thank you to our fantastic teaching team that have fully embraced my "brainwave" to have a Brain Week on top of their already huge workload. You all took on board the Brain Week professional development strategies and morphed them into something very special with your sparkling creativity, you are a joy to work with.
And thank you to our wonderfully supportive parent community. I imagine you have patiently listened to your little sponges gabble on about neurons, lobes and Nigel all week long!!
It all looks fantastic. Well done!
Friday!
And thank you to our wonderfully supportive parent community. I imagine you have patiently listened to your little sponges gabble on about neurons, lobes and Nigel all week long!!
Thanks, Mrs R :o)
