Staff Development

» Energizing the Classroom©   |   » Handwriting Without Tears®   |   » Core Fitness

Teachers and Administrators are you looking to reach more students!  Are you seeing a rise in the children with attention issues, auditory processing issues, reading fluency issues, memory retention issues, behavior issues, poor handwriting, and fatigue? Are you feeling the stress of increased student achievement expectations and accountability? We are here to help!  We will give you new insight into these problems, as well as, strategies that will help make your job easier.   We offer you hope backed by science!

Energizing the Classroom© Staff Development

This is full or half day training program that covers Brain Based Research Principles and their application to exercise in the classroom, as well as, numerous practical classroom activities and strategies that integrate academic instruction with movement throughout the day and transform the learning environment!  Learning through movement is a unique, fun staff development program that offers educators insight into the etiology of many struggling students, as well as, intervention strategies designed to help teachers teach more effectively and improve student academic potential through improved physical and sensory-motor processing skills.

Program Goal:

Objectives:

• What’s going on?
• Participants will recognize reasons why students are coming to school with bodies and minds that are not prepared to learn.
• Why the change?
• Participants will identify reasons for the change in student populations and why teaching has become so difficult.
• How does this relate to education?
• Participants will learn about critical component that occur during each of the stages of brain development and how the components relate to learning.
• Participants will see the responsibilities of the body’s movement system relative to academic instruction nd how it can support or hinder academic progress.
• What can I do to make my job easier?
• Participants will identify the “Secret 7” requirements for memory.
• Participants will identify and practice the use of movement strategies that will improve student’s memory, reading skills, math skills, attention, perceptual skills, and behavior.
• Participants will learn to incorporate the practical classroom strategies and a variety of movement activities into their daily routines for maximized success.

Handwriting Without Tears™ Staff Development

Handwriting legibility continues to be a major concern of teachers and parents.  Poor Handwriting legibility directly affects student academic success including scores on State- wide testing.  

Most handwriting legibility problems can be avoided with early intervention and developmentally appropriate instruction.  Core Possibilities offers staff development training for The Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum.  It is a great functional addition to the Learning Through Movement Program.  

The goal of Handwriting Without Tears® is to make legible and fluent handwriting an easy and automatic skill for all students. The unique and compelling curriculum design and teaching strategies facilitate this goal.

The curriculum uses multi-sensory techniques and consistent habits for letter formation to teach handwriting to all students—Pre-K through Cursive. In addition, HWT provides parents and teachers the instructional techniques and activities to help improve a child's self-confidence, pencil grip, body awareness, posture and so much more!

Handwriting Without Tears® uses fun, entertaining and educationally sound principles in its instructional methods. The lessons are well thought out and need minimal preparation time to be used. The curriculum has been successfully taught to millions of teachers, therapists and parents across the country. The end result is truly "Handwriting Without Tears" for the students, the parents the teachers and the administrators!

Handwriting Without Tears® costs about ½ the large publishers' programs. But schools and parents tell us that the real savings come from the success of the program. The curriculum is so effective that they do not have to spend time or money on evaluations, special education, and/or other extra resources. The best costs less.

• Plan new activities to develop fine motor skills and posture for writing
• Understand the developmental sequence involved in handwriting
• Plan instruction in pre-printing, printing, and cursive using multi-sensory techniques
• Identify appropriate transition times from readiness to printing and printing to cursive
• Prevent/correct reversals of letters and numbers
• Evaluate a student’s handwriting using an informal assessment

• Plan new activities to teach body awareness and other school readiness skills
• Understand how to use music to prepare children for school
• Identify developmental stages in writing readiness
• Understand how to use multi-sensory, hands-on manipulatives to prepare children for handwriting
• Teach a correct and effective “crayon grip” and other fine motor skills
• Teach counting, drawing, shape recognition, and letter/number formations to children at the Pre–K level

Core Fitness Program

Core Fitness serves as a Tier One Response to Intervention.  It is a daily school wide fitness program that includes - vestibular activation and core strengthening exercises to enhance perceptual skills, bilateral coordination exercises for right and left brain activation, and balance challenging exercises to increase the ability to focus and attend.  A wealth of research is available to support increased fitness levels and high academic achievement. This program is a synthesis of the most effective exercises to enhance learning.

Who participates? All students and staff.   

What is it?   A school-wide fitness program with exercises that consists of six individual fitness tracks focusing on breath control, core strengthening, bilateral coordination skills, mid-range control, balance and focusing skills.  The program includes a three- hour staff development training, Core Fitness Manual, and a school site license for two different exercise video programs.   

When do we do it?   20 minutes daily.  The program can be implemented as one 20-minute session or broken up throughout the day in six 3-4 minute sessions.   

Where do we do it?  In the classroom or in the gym. The program has two separate exercise videos.  One can be performed in the gym or in the classroom that allows for space to perform exercises on the floor.

The second option offers exercises that have been modified to be performed using the student’s desk in a crowded classroom.  

Both have unique exercises that are specifically designed for learning.

CORE FITNESS includes:

Training:  Training is the most important element of CORE FITNESS.   A three-hour staff development workshop will cover the body-brain connections, brain based research, core fitness applications to learning, and instruction in the CORE FITNESS exercises.

Application:  Application includes materials to apply the program school or district wide.  The materials include a site license for both exercise videos: Core Fitness Volume One and Modified Core for the Classroom.  A comprehensive school CORE FITNESS Manual  (which includes theory, instructional materials, exercises with pictures, specific physical education standards addressed, and lesson plans that incorporate CORE Fitness exercises in the classroom and help students achieve their Fitness Gram goals for flexibility and strength) is also included.  *Elastic bands are used in track five on both videos and are available at an additional charge if needed.  

Support and Follow Up:  A follow-up site visit may be conducted to assure successful program implementation.