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Getting kids moving
A party with a purpose
Monday, Mar. 5, 2012
By Julie Titone, College of Education
Video by Matt Haugen, WSU News
MOSCOW, Idaho -
Learning on the move is learning in the groove. That was the point of the Dr. Seuss birthday party orchestrated by Washington State University movement studies faculty and staff and held Friday at St. Mary’s School in Moscow.
"In our research, we’ve found a really high correlation between motor skills and perceptual awareness, quantitative, verbal and memory skills,” said Associate Professor Jennifer Beller. She spearheads the SMARTKIDS Program at St. Mary’s, which is designed to increase learning by giving students the chance to move as they learn.
"Since it was Dr. Seuss’ birthday, we planned activities revolving around some of his books,” she said. For example, for "Green Eggs and Ham," students passed fake eggs on spoons from one person to another while solving math problems.
For "Hop on Pop," kids in gunny sacks hopped between pieces of bubble wrap while spelling. Students drew or colored pictures while their hands were covered by cardboard, using only mirrors to view their hand movement.
The party turned the school into an educational beehive, swarming with activity. On hand to help the St. Mary’s faculty direct the activities were Beller; WSU instructor Carol Zweifel; and WSU students Laice Valera, Gui Mattheis-Brown, Tyler Satoshige, Kara Winchell and Travis Johnson.For more photos, click here.
To learn more about SMARTKIDS, click here.
Contact:
Julie Titone, jtitone@wsu.edu, 509-335-6850
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