Day One
Harnessing Energy: Sensory Tools and Techniques for Responsible Learning
Harnessing Energy raises awareness regarding the reasons why Today’s Children are unable to pay attention and learn. For learning to take place, children are required to process and integrate incoming sensory information from their environment. This sensation is in the form of energy, and energy from the environment “primes” the body for leaning. Children who overuse technology, experience body energy that is either charged or zoned out, limiting learning. Teachers, parents and therapists will experience use of sensory tools and techniques to enable children to self-regulate their energy bodies, to enhance attention and improve learning skill.
Harnessing Energy Handouts
Sensory Observations and Strategies form
Zone’in Concept
Zone’in Recommended Tools and Techniques
Back to Basics: Printing Skills – The Forgotten Foundation of Literacy
If a child can’t print, they are essentially illiterate. Children who can’t remember how to make their letters and numbers, or who have poor letter recognition, are delayed in spelling, math, sentence composition, socials, and science. Visual memory attained during letter production impacts on visual recognition necessary for reading. These often bright children are left behind with labels of ‘learning disabled’, when they really just need to learn to print. Poor foundation skills at school entry, teachers spending 14 minutes per day average printing instruction, and non-standardized teaching and evaluation methods, all limit achievement of this integral skill. If we’re still doing it, we’d better be teaching it!
Back to Basics Handouts
Fine Motor Observations and Strategies form
Foundation Scale for Grades K-6
Printing Basics Guide
Day Two
A Cracked Foundation: How Virtual Parenting is Destroying Our Children
As parents connect more and more to technology, they are disconnecting from their children at a rapid pace. The result is an unprecedented escalation of attachment disorders, posing new and challenging behaviors for teachers and therapists. Disconnection from self, other, nature and spirit are resulting in child mental health and behavior disorders that are readily being diagnosed and medicated. As attachment disorders can be a causal factor for addictions, and child technology use patterns follow that of the parents, many of today’s “detached’ families have complex addictions that the health and education professionals are only beginning to detect, much less treat. As 15% of children are now diagnosed with a mental illness, it is imperative for all people who work with children to understand healthy attachment formation, and be able to instruct parents to optimize critical factors for healthy child development and learning. As the dining room table is increasing being replaced by the big screen, and family conversation becomes non-existent, the foundations for child development and finally beginning to crack.
A Cracked Foundation Handouts
Attachment Questionnaire
Technology Addiction Questionnaire
Critical Factors for Child Development Graphic
Mixed Signals: Connection to Technology is Disconnecting Child Development
1 in 3 of children entering the school systems are developmentally delayed, 1 in 3 are obese, and 1 in 6 have a diagnosed mental illness. As the “gap” widens, printing, reading and math literacy become unachievable for many children. Child behavior diagnoses escalate as child aggression creates significant classroom management issues. Why? Elementary aged children use an average 7.5 hours per day of entertainment technology, with over 75% of children allowed technology in their bedrooms. Sedentary, neglected, isolated and overstimulated, the new millennium child can no longer pay attention or learn. Children with technology addictions are increasingly referred to pediatric therapists to treat associated conditions such as tantrums, poor socialization, delayed core stability and motor coordination, and sensory dysregulation. Often misdiagnosed as a behavior disorder or mental illness, these children’s primary condition of technology addiction is not being recognized and treated. Schools are creating Virtual Classrooms, and homes are creating Virtual Families, further alienating children from essential human connection and attachment that is the basis for all learning. Children are our future, yet choices made today raise the question: are the ways in which we are raising and educating our children with technology sustainable?
Mixed Signals Handouts
Technology Screening Tool
Technology Guidelines for Professionals
Ten Steps to Unplug Children from Technology
Unplug’in Brochure for Parents
Day Three
Why Can’t Children Sit Still: Movement and Nature Enhance Attention and Learning
Nature designed children’s bodies to move, touch and connect for adequate physical, mental and cognitive development. Attention restorative environments such as “green space” have been shown to significantly reduce ADHD symptoms, yet school and community fears of litigation have dramatically changed how children access outdoor movement and play. Resources that used to go toward playgrounds are now being diverted toward updating schools with technology. Children are physically moving less, and as a result are not getting the necessary motor and sensory stimulation to their vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile systems, resulting in low postural tone, poor coordination and fluctuating arousal states – important components for printing, reading and paying attention to learn.
Why Can’t Children Sit Still Handouts
Child Development and Nature Directives
Schools Operating Safely – Child Behavior Management Policy
Building Foundations/Virtual Futures Diagram
Diminishing Returns: Increasing Profits in the Classroom
Adhd, autism, developmental delay, developmental coordination disorder, learning disability, sensory processing disorder, reactive attachment disorder, depression, anxiety, technology addictions…today’s students are different! Technology overuse is resulting in disabilities that the health and education systems are only beginning to detect, much less understand. Printing, reading and attention delays are the norm, with an ever widening gap in developmental level and consequent skill performance. With a ranking of 15th on the world stage for literacy, Canadian and U.S. schools are faced with making crucial decisions regarding changes to not only classroom, gym and playground environments, but also to curriculum programming, teacher education, as well as revisions to school policies and structures. The educational empire is on the decline, as returns on investments in education of children continue to diminish. Diminishing Returns raises awareness regarding the diversity of today’s student population, and offers specific and immediate solutions that parents, teachers, principals and government can implement in order to adequately address this growing concern.
Diminishing Returns Handouts
Productivity Designs for Classroom, Gym and Playgrounds
Productivity Measurement Tool
Zone’in Classroom and Gym Stations
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