The Movement Secret Teachers Are Missing | ep. 138

Making Movement and Purpose Central in Education and Parenting
In this episode, Lauren Moseley and TD Flenaugh delve into how incorporating movement, understanding identity, purpose, and providing direction can transform how we support children’s success. Emphasizing intentionality, community, and practical activities, they highlight strategies to nurture well-rounded, confident learners and leaders.

Resources:
Coach Cory Martin YouTube Channel
GoNoodle Movement Activities
Phonics Man on YouTube (Sample Movement Phonics)
Rufo the Kangaroo Instagram
The Little Mobile Home on the Tundra by TD Flenaugh
The Civil Rights Movement Children's Books

Key Topics:

• The importance of movement in learning and how it enhances engagement and cognition
• The role of storytelling, family traditions, and community in shaping identity
• Supporting kids in discovering their purpose through diverse experiences and self-awareness
• Balancing technology use with physical activity to promote overall well-being and prevent excessive screen time
• How educators and parents can collaborate to build a village of support and positive guidance
• Critical reflection on the limitations of tech's role and the importance of hands-on, real-world experiences

Transcript

0:06

thank you so much for joining the falling for learning podcast We are here today. It's Ms. Moseley and I and we're going to be talking about movement and learning Right. So we're always about how we could get our kids to fall in love with learning and one of those ways that is becoming less and less popular movement What are ways we're gonna jam pack this episode with all these different ways that we can include movement into learning activities. So stay tuned, like and subscribe. Okay, Ms. Moseley, we're gonna start you off. What are some of the movement activities that you do right now already? And then we'll talk about some things that you found as you were doing some research. Yeah, so I shared in the last podcast how as a child, I was really fascinated with the body and just the idea that the body is meant to be, you know, to move. So I always into dance and movement. And what I really, really love, I want to say that this probably came about due to the pandemic and everybody was online. But you have these content creators that are on YouTube now that are creating brain breaks, right? Like the coach, Cory Martin. my gosh. Love Coach Cory Martin. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. He's on YouTube. Love. Look. Look. Coach Cory Martin has a plethora of brain break activities in every genre you can imagine. We got K-pop demon hunters, we got uh Pokemon, we got Mario Brothers, we got every video game, everything that kids love. He's got it. And these brain breaks are so fun and they're so necessary because kids are doing a lot of sitting right now. We have a certain amount of apps that we have to, you on these different apps. You know, we have three different platforms where throughout the week we have to meet our goals. And it's district mandated. So everybody's sitting at a computer. And this is the most movement these babies are getting right here. Click, click, click, click. So Coach Cory Martin, if you're out there, thank you for the brain breaks. But... and brain breaks are important, and how, my mind was how can we actually make movement part of the learning and not part of the break from learning? Because you know. We're breaking, brain breaks are when you're, you we need a break from the sitting and doing this all day. So let's now, you know, my brain goes to this place where how can we make the movement the lesson? So I have been on a hunt on Instagram, following some great teacher creators that have come up with some amazing uh activities. I'm, some of them are new. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try. uh One is the, it's the musical chairs. version of a phonics drill where you have maybe you have your target phonics that your sound that you're working on. Let's say it's uh right now we're doing R control vowels so you put a bunch of books on the floor around the perimeter of a carpet and you have the kids walk walk along the carpet playing music. You gotta play the music, right? Getting them dancing, moving, getting up. And then you stop the music and then they have to stop right where they are, pick up the book that's right there in front of them. They gotta look for an R-controlled vowel word. That's all have to do. They have to read it, look for the word. Good, I just want to pause a little bit because with our audience, I always want to be clear. So if you're not clear, an R-controlled vowel is um O-R, right? When you have fort, fort, F-O-R. O-R is that R-controlled vowel, and then it also might be R-A-R, like barn. And there's E-R, like T-T- Right and there's several of them so we don't have to go through all of them But that's an R controlled vowel and that is something that we teach kids um You know as they're learning the code how to sound out words when they see an AR They would know what it means as we teach them it says R So they're reading the word and they could sound it out knowing that so we do a lot of activities When we're teaching that target sound like maybe it's AR for the week and we might be flashing cards, we might have them write words with the AR in it. And then what this teacher has done is make sure that they have several books with AR in it and they go around the carpet and it's a circular, you know, go around, they have a, around the edge of the carpet, um they have the books and then. You have to stop and find the AR words inside of uh the books and that's how you do it. Of course they could do this sitting down, but including the movement in and the play inside the learning activity is something that we are looking to do and that is one way that she found it. So I always want to certify. I have to find out who that person was. Let's see. Tisha Martin, but again, to be clear, Misha, okay, see I'm way off. Anyway, we will put these in the show notes. The other thing that I want to say is um I wanna take a little bit back like a brain break. What does that look like? So we know that they are stopping their learning for a little bit, but what... What are they doing during that brain break? There is some movement there. What are they doing and what is it like? Yeah, you're right. I probably need to clarify that so a brain break is Basically you go to YouTube you look up coach Cory Martin. He's got a whole channel and You pick any one of his activities and it could be uh one of them is we're going on a bear hunt and it basically is Kids are are standing up and they're watching a video of It's like a virtual bear hunt and you're jumping over things. And so when you get to the rock, you see the rock on the screen and he says, jump, everybody has to jump. They're jumping in their places, but they jump. They have to dodge left. They have to dodge right as things are swooping down, you know, on the screen. um And then they get to the bear and the bear, you know, turns around and the kids have to run. But of course they're running in place and they're running from the bear and then they have to walk quietly. shows them, you know, walking quietly. So it's basically an interactive story or an interactive eh something where you are having to find treasures. There's one where they give you two options and you point to one box or the other box, whatever option you want, A or B. And when the box opens, you have to do the motion of whatever has popped out of the box, whether it's a person doing jumping jacks or a person doing pushups or sit ups. So the kids are there, then get some choice, which one of these options, which one of these movements do you want to do? So there's lots of different types of brain breaks. So I would suggest just go look it up and just enjoy. I get involved too. I'm doing the brain break too. This is how I get my cardio in. yes. um So some things that I have tried with my students for learning, so we have sight words or tricky words, people call them all kinds of different things um for the kids to know. So these are words like, and the are, like are you there today? um What is your name? Like what? So these words are, in lots and lots of books and lots of lots of text and we want students to understand them. They don't always follow rules. That's why we call them tricky words. um And I have found some YouTube videos where kids are saying the word and doing reading the word and doing an exercise while they'll do it. So they might be doing a squat and they're saying what? W-H-A-T what or whatever so then they are doing the squat. They're doing the jumping jacks for want W-A-N-T want so that is another way of including movement into it. Of course we could do the same exact thing doing the flashcards as we sit down right but this is them moving and reading and spelling out the word as they go and so uh that is a way that we could do that when we we do that like on our fun Fridays. um We'll have different centers where they could do that. em I also sometimes have kids stand up and write when they're doing it, which is not exactly the same as the movement, em but just uh it is movement in the way that we don't have kids just sitting down, which we know like Ms. Moseley is saying, there's just so many. days where they might just be sitting because there's testing or there's something happening and it's just like a all business day and we can get up for a little bit and be writing using whiteboards writing on the desk i have these whiteboard um like sticky paper that i put on the on the desk and then they could write on the desk and stand up and that's always a thrill because they're not really supposed to be writing on the desk but because I have these special conditions we are writing on the desk and that's exciting. That little bit of change where they could get up and do that makes them you know have you know have another level of engagement you know. Yes. Yeah, we had a. a set of wobble chairs in our room as well. At one point, I tried to get a wobble chair for every kid, but that was just a little chaotic. So we have a center that is designated for riding and it's on wobble chairs. And that also gives them like an opportunity to move. And there's some kids that they're honestly, they concentrate better when they're moving. uh And it might be easier for them to actually channel the thinking that they're doing if they get if they can just move a little bit. oh usually I have some kids at that designated place, hey, you need to get your wiggles out. If you'll do your work and get your wiggles out, I'm all good with it. So yeah, I'm really thinking a lot about movement. just as a way to just not only keep the kids engaged, but we have a uh childhood obesity crisis going on as well. Like we have kids that are sitting far too much and it is. um you know, way for them again to connect to their bodies. You know, we do the uh Cosmic Kids yoga sometimes as well as a brain break, just to give them the opportunity to connect to their breath and their body and their movement. And, you know, just to see kids who, I remember being six years old and, you know, on a Saturday we would get up, watch cartoons and hit the door and we'd be out all day. Yes. literally, right? Until the, the light goes off. And I was like, I guess streetlights are on, better go home. And there's a part in your book where someone says you can go inside or outside, but you can't do both. So if you go outside, you're outside for the day. If you come inside, you're inside for the day. There's not all this in and out. I'm like, yes. I remember that being said to me many a times. So taking that option to go outside. uh And kids just, we just don't have that today. That's just not something that is a part of our community norms now. You don't see kids outside just playing, unsupervised. So. fear thing, right? Because they don't feel that they're as safe as they could be. em And it may be true. I mean, I think we have a lot more parents that just have different types of jobs, right? Like if we're at home, our parents might be at work and. em you know, if kids are at home, I'm saying if kids are at home, their parents might be at work, and so they don't feel safe with them being outside while they're not home. And it's safer for them just to be inside, not opening up the door for anybody, and when they get home, it still might be dark or whatever, so it's not time to play either. So they find ways to entertain, and of course we know that video games are the drug of choice for many of our kids. Yes. That Mario pit is just... activity of choice. Yeah, yeah, and you know, I think that goes back to what we're talking about with community. It's, people don't know, before when we were younger, the whole community was watching out for you. Like, you know, anyone could discipline you or, you know, call your mom or. make sure you were doing the right thing. just don't have, people don't even know their neighbors now. Let alone trust your kid to be watched by your neighbor if they just happen to be out and just keep an eye on them. It's just not the same. So I can see why kids are inside. I get it. I wasn't in the the era where I wasn't in the era where anybody could discipline me I was not in that era, but I was in the stay outside all day era but but no one it wasn't it wasn't that and maybe No, I don't think it was that at all. But I'm not sure I grew up in Alaska and Yeah, so I don't know right like I knew my neighbors um But when I later moved uh outside of the town limits, uh was, I didn't have any neighbors. So I could be outside. We were, we were outside a lot, you know, and because there were no neighbors, there was no one around. uh Sometimes we would see some animals, but mostly it was just us outside and we didn't have any neighbors. But when I did have neighbors, no one could just discipline us. But we all stayed out and played outside, but no one could just discipline. So we weren't in that era. um yeah, mean, but yeah, perhaps. I've heard a lot of people say that. feel like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know about it, but I've heard of it a lot. um getting our kids into movement. So you have the musical chairs uh version where you're walking around and then choosing a book. Instead of choosing a chair, you're choosing a book. You're sitting down around the carpet. What other activities have you seen that adds the movement? Yeah, so I saw something just recently. um It's a little bit less movement in terms of like walking around, but it's very clever in that the kids are having to, you can be standing up or you can sit down, but the kids are, uh there's a... Letters, like those little magnetic letters. Put them on there. My desk are magnetic. You can write on them. You can stick things to them. So they have those kind of And they have a plastic cup. so say the letters are, this is for very young kids, and this is something you'd probably do in a center. Like I said, a few episodes. ago that some kids come in and they don't know the names of the letters. They know the sounds, but they don't know what the names are. So you play this game where you're trying to show the kids, trying to teach the kids the letter names. So you have two kids, facing each other, they have all these letters spread on the desk and they have a cup and you say the name of a letter and then they have to put the cup on top of the uh letter. Now, There's a, I have to, this is my senior brain having a senior moment. Oh, this is it. So there's also a ambiguous thing like a spider, right? And so you can say a keyword and there's only one and you can say some kind of thing like a spider and they have to find the spider amongst all the letters and put the cup on top of it. It's just something that's fun. It's random. It's for nothing. But it's one of those things that kind of gets them looking and see who can do it the fastest. So. For instance, W and they look, they look and they put their cup on top of W and there's enough W so everyone's gonna have a chance, you know. Then you say S and they're looking, looking, looking and they may put it on top of a T and they see their friend. no, no, that's not it. That's not an S. look, here's an S. And then you say spider and there's only one and they're like, ah! Oh, here it is. Put it on top of the spider. So it's like a non-traditional way of doing something that we have to do anyway, but they're up, they're moving, they're sitting around a table, they're standing around a table, they have these cups, so they have this tactile thing that they get to move around. And it just makes it a lot more fun. There's movement. It's not as quiet. That's why you don't want to play with a lot of kids, but yeah. of that? Do you have a video of that? Or that's one that you created? You know what? I'm gonna, I saw a version of this uh and we can put it in the show notes. There's someone who does something very similar. It's Rufo the kangaroo preschool on Instagram. I got, and she does a very similar thing with the cup um Yeah, so if you check out that video, it is a very similar thing. And I have a couple of different cup games, just to help the kids to even have a sense of like, hey, you can make up this, you could play with anything. You can play with letters, you could play with, they have a word cards, could put word cards on the desk. So I've let them, you can put numbers, you could draw the numbers on the desk. So I've had different kids come up with, ways that they can adapt this game. It's very simple. All you need is a cup and something that you're trying to study. It could be adapted for anything. I love that. So something that I've done with my students uh in the writing is we have living paragraphs. uh so every student can talk out this, like, for example, if we're write a paragraph about apples, right? So the point is having related sentences and. So we will talk out the paragraph, like apples are a fruit, right? So we might start really basic like that. So someone stands up, they are the topic sentence. And then our detail sentence, um some apples are red and some are green, you know? And then we can have another sentence. Apples have a seed in the core. uh Another one might be when you cut into an apple, it has white flesh or something, you know, like, you know, So everyone can stand up in order and they are the different parts of the sentence. Now to do this for younger kids, right? So once we talk out the sentence, they can write it. So you know how it's a scaffold because students might be new at learning how to put paragraphs together. And then we'll say it needs to be related sentences. What else can we say about that apple? Taiesha is the one who is saying the topic sentence. Kim is the one who is saying, you know, and we stand up in that group that stands up. They are each represent a sentence and they could say their sentence. And so then we could write the sentence that they just spoke out. Of course, you could have groups do this. and we could write out one sentence strip, the first sentence, the second sentence, and then we could write it all in paragraph form. Another way to do this with younger kids is that you could have the letter A, the letter, so having uh them have a big letter, like 110 font, right, a big letter B, a big letter A, a big letter G, all the alphabet, right? And even you could do this with The AR I'm gonna put AR the R controlled vowel on their bar So you someone has a B someone's AR and we put it together bar so the kids can stand up and hold up that paper Wrap it again there. Hope the paper and it has a B on it right big B I don't have it. Yes, can see the big B and you know someone else is the a and someone else is the G and then we're like bag as group. So the kids are getting up and of course everybody wants to get up and be a letter. And then you also could do the word chaining. So now we had bag. So now we want to make the word nag. And then so someone else's who's the N and someone else's the N the N comes up nag nag. Okay, so now we want to do and you could do nonsense words with it. You could be nam and make up a word or you could, you know, you could get more tricky and say we're to We're gonna change two different letters at the same time, right? So there's a ways that you could do it so everyone's standing up and gets a chance. And you could do it in small groups as you are releasing that responsibility. So in a small group, we could have people represent and do it. So that's another way, getting them up. It's not as movement as they're getting exercise, but they are up and moving around. And it's really making concrete this idea of spelling words sounding out words with kids rep, you know, different kids represented as different sounds. Yes. Yeah. Chaining is lots of fun. The kids love that. Yeah. I forgot one more. I forgot about one. I can't remember who this content creator is, but she has yoga mats that she has put hop. She's drawn like the hopscotch. uh know, a hopscotch on the yoga mat. And then she puts words or letters on the little squares and then the kids jump on them to say the sounds. I do have my hopscotch letters that I, um we're going to be doing that more and more. But yeah, that, those are also lot of. letters. I love that. So that I have not even thought about with the hopscotch. think we were counting back in the day, but I love that. And I could just do like, b-ag and I could just jump over the, yeah, cause you do hop, you hop over one. Okay. I love it. That is great. I'm definitely using it. I did use the activity that you were telling us about before where you were saying how we could, um you know, there's 10 letters or 10 sight words that they need to practice on. And we did the... um Go fish, right? And the kids like doing that. And we also did the memory with it. So we put all those, you know, the two sets of 10 words, right? So you have 20 cards and then we put them face down and we're trying to find the A or the and the, or more challenging words, the uh bright, not bright, like laugh or something, whatever sight words, whatever they're working on. And they really enjoyed that as well. And that is some movement, cause you can't just sit down as, your the card you have to be up, you have to move around and stretch over here and stretch over there. So, um and then of course it's a game and with games the kids are also like retaining this information better. So it's not just fun, it keeps them engaged and we have higher learning rates. There is some research coming out now that is saying that these devices actually, um make kids less smarter overall. So there's research about it. And I understand why, because a lot of skills, like if I have you doing paper pencil work, there's so many skills involved. Like I have to have you write your name on your paper. And you know, now you don't have to write your name in the app. You're already signed in. You'll have to write your name, right? um And apps very rarely ask you to write your name. And it's like you're in. And so writing your name on the paper, organizing the paper, big or small to write when you're just typing it, just types and you don't have to worry about spacing out things that much. You might write, you know, you just touch the space bar. But when kids are really like trying to navigate how to create a space, like that's a different skill, right? Sometimes the spaces are this wide and then you're like, okay, write it close together without touching. And so all of the things that you have to like negotiate space and and all the things that come into like sitting down with the paper, not wrinkling, You know how you even sit and you're like uh Crinkling up the paper as you're writing or like there's just so many skills We don't think about that now the computer takes away. They just type it in the app and like you said it's just like Right and it leaves so much like we're not discussing it we're not talking and of course the computer could say say this and You may or may not say it and but you know, so I'm not saying take completely away the computers, but I'm saying make sure that there's a balance and we're being intentional. Because if we're not careful, our kids are sitting down all day just pointing, not writing. And that makes me a little sad that you have three required apps that they are supposed to do minutes for. We only have one. Yeah. Yeah. consider that then now they're going to have two or they're going to have three. And I feel like a lot of that, the gains that their students make, they like everybody, everyone claims it. Right. So I come in with my app and I'm like, people who have done the Taiesha app, the kids who have done the Taiesha app have improved 30 percent. Now, I. I'm not saying, you know, of course it's all about the Taiesha app and why they gained. Nothing to say that Ms. Moseley has been, you know, strategizing and planning and working with the kids and pulling them to the side. Nope, the Taiesha app, because of the Taiesha app. Kids have improved 30 % and they put up these graphs and it acts like no one else was involved Not that Miss mostly Communicated and collaborated with the parent and the parent was working with the kid to get the reading right? That there was maybe an interventionist that was pulling in the kids. It's it's the app the app results it in 30 % growth for the kids. And I feel like we as teachers need to push back against that and say, excuse me, the teachers have been doing the professional development, the teachers have been planning, the people have been collaborating, the resource teacher has collaborated. You know, we have perfect people who came in and did professional development and really work with us. And so we work together as a team and and they were on the Taiesha app. Not that the Taiesha app is the reason that there's 30 % growth and that is how they're presenting it. And we really need to push back against that because I think teachers just sit and listen. And I need people to say, excuse me, we have actually been working and I've definitely improved in the way that I deliver, I teach comprehension skills to my students. And so I know that that is some part of the growth at least. Not all goes to the Taiesha app. Like, excuse me. going to tell you, the thing that I think I have, because it's only been about four years that we've really ramped up the minutes. What I'm finding is the apps are becoming management tools. I'm not saying that's how everyone perceives them, but when I need to work with a small group, It is not uncommon for the kids to go on their app because I need it quiet so I can work on this. So what I'm noticing that that happens a lot. We're being asked to do these one-on-one district evaluations with our students and the room has to be quiet because you have to listen for them and listen at their reading. So what are you doing? What are the other kids doing? They're like, just put them on their app. Put them on the app. Like, yeah, but this. Each test takes 10 minutes. So all week they're going to be on an app. that's what they're going be doing this. That's a lot of time. But yeah, that's what they're expecting. They're like, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just put them on the app. I've never seen a kid fall asleep playing, uh doing their sounds on the hopscotch, on the hopscotch match. Never had a kid fall asleep. I have had kids fall asleep on their apps though. They got the little divider up, you walk past, they are out. They're out like they are taking snooze on the keyboard. So that's one thing that we can say for sure. Yes, never fawn asleep playing hopscotch. parents and educators, let's just be intentional about putting some movement in our students' learning lives, okay? Because these big corporations are coming in with their app and claiming all the gains are due to them. em And it's just not true. And there is research to support. And a lot of these uh tech, founders don't even allow their kids on Devices and stuff like that too. So you really need to take a look at that but our Middle-class and poor kids it's perfect and in fact required Required so it's something that we really have to look at and that's something I also talk about a lot on this podcast is like, when I'm saying we're preparing our children for success, we want them to be in leadership roles, right? And, and... You know, so that takes different things than just always listening and following instructions. Sometimes they are questioning us. Sometimes they are up and moving. Sometimes they're thinking outside the box. They're making suggestions. Can we do this instead of this? And sometimes we are able to give them some wiggle room. uh And sometimes we're not, we give them a balance, but being intentional about how we're providing movement for our kids, how we're giving them some leeway to be leaders, think outside the box, make suggestions. And it really takes some intentionality to make sure our kids are on a successful path. There are lots of things to knock them off that path. uh And then also just some programming that the school does. intentionally or unintelligent and unintentionally depending on who you're thinking about or who's about just preparing our kids to be followers instead of leaders and so you just have to be intentional. yes, exactly. I forgot. You know what? I should have written this down. I also want to give a shout out to uh Phonics Man. That's another, he's a brain break YouTuber that also includes learning. Like it's a lot of movement, but it also has learning and GoNoodle. GoNoodle has a couple of really good uh phonics related, reading related movement kind of activities. So I didn't want to forget about this. Yes. Yeah, this is great. full with all types of movement activities and thanks again for joining us and Again do something today that gives your child the competitive advantage. Thank