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Completely Revised
A New SENSORY
Self-Awareness
Body to Brain
Authored by Catherine Mitchell
Part I - A New SENSORY Self-Awareness Body to Brain: This dynamic and interactive series of twelve lessons shows participants how to feel the influence their bodies have on thinking and feeling. The program is designed to improve awareness, in-classroom management, and school culture. Participants learn how to shift perception from outside to inside by enhancing a clearer sense of self and their relationship with others. An array of self-observing techniques using breath, sound, and movement promote awareness of mental, emotional and physical interconnections. A New Sensory Self Awareness helps lives change.
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Developing the Genius Within the Heart
Integrative Curriculum for K-5
Physical Education & Academic Movements Programs
Created by Catherine Rosasco Mitchell
Teacher of Kinesthesia Sciences 25 years
Wellness Through Movement® teaches awareness through movement.
Games expand neurological self-awareness (meaning the organic sense of who we are)
and the connections between emotions, thoughts and physical actions. This type of awareness
can only be understood through experience. When this awareness expands, health and vitality seem to improve.
The primary intention of the movement program first and foremost, is to support the precious commodities of our times,
our children’s enthusiastic spirits. Combining the elements of fun, sensory motor and neuromuscular reeducation,
movement games embrace the uniqueness of each child and give tools to help them stand the test of time.
Mission Statement
Wellness Through Movement® programs are dedicated to enriching the well-being of children’s authentic nature in the areas of self-care, performance and potential from the body to the brain.
Programs Objective
- To raise the level, depth, and breadth of public dialogue and awareness on core issues of children's life challenges.
- Enhance brain and body connections by developing a deeper sense of self-awareness through neuromuscular re-educational movement lessons.
"At the beginning I felt like a slug. At the end I felt like a cheetah."
-2nd grader
The Young at Heart PE:
• Core developmental Movement series of 15 lessons, 30-40 minutes
Movement Toolbox for Teachers:
• In-classroom, 5-minute movements to support cognitive learning including math, reading, and writing.
• Chaos Movement tools
• Transition Movement tools
Parent Cheat Sheets:
• Whas Up in PE? Clues to give parents to use at home for example to calm and center kids, communication, and stress reduction.
Get With the Earth:
• Gym mat donation program for elementary schools
Upcoming Events
Kohala Community Spring Fest
March 2, 2013 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Parent Presentation:
11:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.
Kohala Elementary School
54 3609 Akonipule Hwy
Kapaau, HI 96755
More Info: (808) 889-7100
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Feldenkrais® North West Regional Meeting
Feldenkrais® Practitioners Presentation
April 6, 2013
San Francisco, CA
More Information: FGNANorthernCal@gmail.com
or Mail Checks to: P.O. Box 6934 Kamuela, HI 96743
TARGET GOALS:
Our vision within three years is to have data to show more engaged and effective learners who are emotionally aware, focused critical thinkers who experience joy in learning. We hope children will want to move and play, have a sense of belonging, and most importantly, have fun. Especially for parents we want their children to reach their full potential and have a healthy relationship with them. By nature, when we come into the world for infinite possibilities. We were born we’re like a ball of sensation unable to walk, talk or reason. Young at Heart PE follows nature’s lead, and gets kids back on the ground and doing essential developmental movements paramount the first year of life. This is done through specific scientific sequences of movements so the nervous system can create and build from a vast foundation: thus resulting in a broader trajectory opening an array of possibilities.
GENERAL LEARNER OUTCOMES Helps Support:
• Safety of self and others
• Higher IQ scores
• Self esteem
• Listening skills and communication
• Tools for problem solving
• Decrease violent tendencies
• Social character
• Moral character
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION & NATIONAL
PHYSICAL EDUCATION STANDARDS Helps Support:
• Understand variety of rules that keep people safe play etiquette by increased spatial awareness and team building• Increased motor skills, balance and coordination
• Understand social and emotional benefits to physical activities by increasing the innate drive for exercise
• Fitness and conditioning activities for increased cardiovascular endurance
• Increased pulmonary capacity and calms nervous system
• Basic locomotor skills alone, with a partner and in small groups e.g. hopping, skipping, jumping, running.
• Basic non-locomotor skills e.g. twisting, pushing, pulling
• Manipulative skills e.g. throwing, catching, striking, kicking
• Basic movement concepts and control e.g. changes direction, space, time, effort and relationship in traveling
• Physical activities e.g. locomotor or chasing and fleeing activities
WELLNESS & HEALTH Helps Support:
o Ways of learning including math, English, and test taking
o Awareness of the body and how to use the body to calm the brain
o Gives personal tools to decreased hyperactivity and anxiety
o Fuels curiosity and attention
o Innovation and creativity
o Respect and appreciation for uniqueness and differences of self and others
o Self & body image
o Healthy alignment, positive attitude thus stronger immune system & metabolism
o May decrease urges for substance abuse
o Identify healthy behaviors and impact on personal health
o Expression of needs and wants in healthy ways
o Respond to unwanted threatening or dangerous situations
MOST IMPORTANT: Support FUN!
Organization History
Wellness Through Movement® began in January of 2005, when an innovative elementary school interested in the neuromuscular perspective in physical education contacted Ms. Catherine Rosasco Mitchell, kinesthesia educator for twenty years (kinesthesia: the deep sense perception of movement, the muscular sense of perception), and invited her to enhance the school’s physical education curriculum.
Significant effects as well as the enthusiasm of the children from simple adjustments in the curriculum including additional developmental movements involving the “whole child,” inspired an integrative physical education curriculum. With the help of Ms. Susie Jones, Physical Education Instructor, the Wellness through Movement Board of Advisors, local community groups, parents, teachers and administrators, a core unit of 15 primary movement lessons/games was created.
Neuroscience, the mathematics of physics in the biomechanics of muscular-skeletal systems (Functional Integration®), and psychology are vital in teaching children how to turn their senses inward to enrich their authentic nature and the integration of multiple intelligences. The curriculum’s use of neuroscience research and scientific sequences of movements helps with strength, coordination and alignment, while the games with themes such as the virtues of courage, respect, and trust, encourage the heart and character of a child. Most importantly the methodology fuels enthusiasm, self-directed learning, and creativity.
The Distinctive Competence of Wellness Through Movement Programs:
Wellness Through Movement Programs® are unique compared to the array of other movement styles because they use the combination of neuroscience, mathematical physics of biomechanics in motion and personal exploration. Lessons are based on how the human skeleton functions in relation to the mind, it’s multiple array of senses (over 18) and gravitational field. Based on the idea that the human brain learns by nature, the Wellness Through Movement methodology complements a variety of teaching styles. Not only is Young at Heart PE a physical education course, but it also supports cognitive learning skills such as math and reading.
The Young at Heart PE Methodology:
 Customized movement lessons strengthen human innate nature, bridging awareness between attitude, action and alignment for a wide array of learning styles. The lessons invite full participation regardless of the learner’s abilities or physical or emotional state, and result in the creative expanded sense of personal possibilities.
Utilizing research in the fields of neuroscience, motor functioning, and psychology, movement lessons create new possibilities for awareness and the process of learning how we learn. Games based on a virtue such as respect, trust, or courage are played in such lessons as, “No Place Like Home Breath,” “Panda Bear Bowling,” and “Blindfold Dance.”
For example in the “No Place Like Home lesson, the virtue of respect is explored by teaching about the “home breath.” The “home breath” is about centering oneself or finding peace within a “storm.” Big beat music frees the kid’s spirits, but if they bump into or touch anyone the music freezes and attention is redirected to deep inside with the “home breath.” Following the vibration of saying “hooooommmmme” out loud, the kids move to their centers, calming their minds/bodies. Through a scientific sequence of steps involving the senses and movements in personal bubbles ranging in size from large to small, the students’ inner and outer “worlds” are brought into harmony.
In another example the “Panda Bear Bowling I” lesson teaches the virtue COURAGE (“core-rage” the core and passion of the heart) and the customized rock n’ roll movements based on neuroscience research, focus on how the pelvis re-aligns the core of the body. A large, soft, rubber bowling ball comes rolling the students’ way. If they are not doing the “rock n’ roll” pelvic twist and get bumped, it’s off to the “HOME” corral (until they are centered enough to join the alley again). The lessons are about how attention is affected by awareness within and outside of the one's self, sense of centering, strength and realignment of posture, have on virtues of courage and flexibility within the vessel of the body/mind.
Assessment Measures:
• Does the child demonstrate more patience, calmness, creativity, and cooperation?
• Does the child resort to the body techniques to calm the mind?
• Does the child feel more balanced emotionally and physically?
• Is the child more innovative in problem solving?
• Have the child’s attention and participation improved?
• Have the child’s test scores and academic performance improved?
Mahalo & A hui hou!
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CONTACT INFORMATION:
