The Brain - Te Roro

Our Healthy Body, Healthy Mind inquiry has us thinking. Is brain health physical or mental? Both, of course!

We learnt that while the brain is only 2% of our body mass, it uses up to 20% of our blood supply. We know that keeping and healthy and fit is the best way to ensure our brain is always at its physical best. We looked at some metaphor (monkeys in a tree, the hand model) - different ways of thinking about our brain and emotional well-being. Our brain has different parts which can be separated into upper (thinking and logic) and middle (survival). When these parts are communicating, we can make decisions and focus on tasks. Sometimes the communication breaks down and we might "flip our lid."

Developing a Culture of Risk Taking, Mistake Making, Perseverance and Accepting Challenges

Beliefs about ability have a huge impact on learning so we have been learning to take risks with our learning.

We are learning to make mistakes as they are a great opportunity to learn. When we make mistakes our brain grows. No one learns without making mistakes. Risks are valuable

We are learning to set goals and reflect on our learning to see progress. 

We are learning about Growth Mindset and how to persevere through challenges with an "I can" attitude. Challenge seeking and diligent effort is the goal.

We are learning about the power of "yet." Just because we can't do something yet does not mean you can't do it. 

Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. ~Oprah Winfrey

We watched this clip. We asked our students how you can become smarter. This is what they said:

• persevere
• don't give up
• accept challenges
• use your Growth Mindset
• practise
• try and try again
• make mistakes 
• take risks

I am Powerful Plan

Matariki and Mahutonga have been learning about different emotions over the past weeks, and now we have begun to learn about the Thinking Brain and the Emotional Brain. These two brains -or parts of our brain- help us to understand how we feel and make decisions about how we act. The scientific terms are the prefrontal cortex (Thinking Brain) and the amygdala (Emotional Brain).

Charlotte and Emelia sharing their learning about the brain

But what do we do when the Emotional Brain gets overwhelmed? How can we come back to our Thinking Brain and make a good decision? We have been learning different ways to calm our Emotional Brain by breathing. Have a look at some ideas here:

We have made a plan so we can be powerful and make better choices when situations get tricky.

We started by thinking of some things that might provoke our Emotional Brain, then brainstormed what character strengths might help us get back to our Thinking Brain.

Now we have a plan for when we might face challenges, and we will be practising how to make our brains powerful and make a good choice. Our plans might change over time as we learn more.

The Brain and Maths

As part of our Inquiry, "Healthy Body, Healthy Mind?" we have been learning about the brain. We did some learning about Growth Mindset and Maths. We found out how learning happens.

We know that Maths is a creative subject and anyone can learn it!

Today we watched a video about Maths Myths and the Brain by Jo Boaler. We found out that a myth about Maths is that people are not born gifted. Anyone can learn Maths and anyone can do well if they practise, persevere and accept challenges.

When you learn something, synapses fire in the brain. Pathways are formed and the more you return to an idea the stronger the pathways get. When you learn something your brain grows and the learning sticks if you learn it deeply and come back to it often. When you make mistakes synapses fire and the brain grows.

How Can We Change The Way We View Mistakes?

Mistakes help your brain to grow!

Students crumpled a piece of paper and threw it at the board (maybe with some feelings of frustration.) Students retrieved their paper, smoothed it out and traced the creased lines with a coloured pen- this represented the brain growth. Synapses grow in your brain.

We will display the paper to show them the importance of making mistakes.

Mistakes.

You usually think that mistakes are bad, But they actually they help your brain grow.
when you make mistakes, it makes your synopsis fire up, which help brain growth.
For example. Edison created the light bulb, and other cool inventions. But actually his teacher said he was to stupid to learn. But Edison persevered and made 1,000 mistakes. When a reporter asked him about his mistakes, he said they weren't mistakes, they were small steps.

By Alex B