Brainy Matters

I was out blog stalking the other day and came across a brilliant idea at Mr. B's Beach Brains. If you are not following his blog, you are truly missing out.

I have mentioned before that I have two special needs children but have never shared much more than that. One was recently diagnosed with damage to his working memory. While this was a relief to know the issue behind the problem it also presented some new struggles as I was informed that there is no cure and no treatment. From researching on my own, I have found that this is incorrect. There are things that can be done to improve his capabilities.

What is the working memory?
The working memory is the part of your brain that takes in information around you and processes it. In fact, you are using it this very second. How I explained it to my son is that the box in which he gathers information into his too small causing his brain to turn off and stop taking in new information. From the working memory, information is sent to the short term memory then the long term memory.

For him, his brain usually shuts off after five minutes. This is nightmarish to me as who ever heard of a five minute lesson! Once his brain is full, he has to process the information to his normal sized short term then long term memories. If he does not process it, he loses it. If he gets too much, he loses it.

What does this have to do with Mr. B?
Ah yes... back to the brilliant Mr. B who stole borrowed this idea from another teacher. I stumbled upon his Brain Book right after trying to digest information on what my son would need to succeed. This book correlates with so much of the research I have read on handling children with traumatic brain injuries!

I, of course, had questions and wanted more information. Checkout Mr. B's answers! The answers helped but I knew if I did decide to utilize the Brain Book, I would make it my own.

I also called in my guinea pigs for their take of this idea.The first question was if they could have a notebook shaped like a brain. Ummm... no, sorry guys! This mama/teacher is not cutting out countless brain-shaped pages for your use. Despite the lack of a brain-shaped notebook, they like the idea.

This is the first in a series of posts about the Brain Book as I am tweaking it to fit me. I am using a black notebook for my brain book. (For organization purposes, all students use the same color notebooks so I can see at a glance they are using the right book.).

Page 2 & 3 - Brain Book Expectations - Using Mr. B's document as a template, I created my own letter to parents.

The students will actually begin writing on page 7 or 8. It depends on how the other things fit into the book. What other things you ask and what happened to page 1? Ah... yes, that is a post for another day.

UPDATE: I have created an entire kit for use in your classroom! The name "The Brain Book" is protected by copy right so my book is called "Brainy Matters." The boys laughed and thought it was cute. Get your copy today at TpT!

Now I am off to do my homework!