Learning About Our Brains

Room 20 has been given a special treat.  Over the last two days, Mrs. D. Lockhart has been visiting us to teach us all about our brains.  

We've learned about three different parts of our brains.  The front part of your brain is called the pre-frontal cortex (or PFC for short), and it helps us function.  It allows us to read, think, and be smart.  We also learned about our amygdala.  This part of our brain controls a more basic function in our bodies, the flight or fight response.  When we get upset or scared, we can react in three ways.  We can fight, we can run away (or flee), or we can freeze.  Mrs. Lockhart referred to these as 'the three fs'.  The last part of our brain that we talked about is the hippocampus.  This part of our brain is like a scrapbook.  It holds all our memories.

We discussed how when we get really upset, it's like when we shake up a bottle full of glitter.  Our brain is so scattered that we cannot respond properly.  When this occurs we are thinking with our amygdala, and therefore we can only react in three ways.  We can fight, we can flee, or we can freeze.  (We really liked the actual bottle full of glitter that Mrs. Lockhart brought to help us visualize).  When this happens we need to do things to help us calm down so that we can think with the "thinking" part of our brain, the PFC.

Yesterday we read a fantastic story about a little girl who got very mad and had to calm down.  This book gave us some ideas of how we could do the same thing when we get angry or upset.

Today Mrs. Lockhart came back to talk about our brain some more; however, she was not alone.  Today we had a special guest.  Mrs. Stevenson joined us, and Mrs. Lockhart told us that she is a brain expert.  We reviewed all the things we learned about our brains yesterday then we talked about calming our brains and being mindful.  We practiced some techniques that we could do to calm our minds and bodies and be mindful about what we are saying or doing.  

Mrs. Lockhart and Mrs. Stevenson will be visiting again to teach us more about our brains and being mindful.

This is the model we used to show what our brains look like.

Within our model, our pointer fingers are the amygdala.

Mrs. Lockhart showing us a poster of our brain.

Practicing one of our calming activities.

Room 20 would like to wish everyone a great long weekend and a Happy Easter!

(taken during Choice Time)