Six Bricks & Crossing the B-Line Mats - Book 2
Welcome to the ‘Crossing the B-Line mat’ and the Move, Jump and follow mat’ suite of mathematical, spatial awareness and working memory activities.
This 64-page booklet covers 165 mathematical & skill building activities at the primary school level and is divided into sections as follows:
- Basic Maths (48 Activities / Junior Primary)
- Advanced Maths (33 Activities / Middle Primary)
- Spatial Awareness / Working Memory (66 Activities / Primary)
- Move, Jump and Follow (18 Activities/Primary)
For each activity, the teacher calls out a series of instructions (moves) and the children carry out each instruction in turn by moving the corresponding named brick to the required new position. This requires steady concentration and repeated cognitive processing.
If, for example, you are using the ‘Crossing the B-line mat and the six bricks are all in their starting position on the B-Line (red line) and the teacher says: Yellow to 4. In this case, the child moves the yellow brick to the blue line immediately above the red line as this is ‘4’. If the teacher says: Light blue to 1, then the pupil moves the light blue brick to the bottom blue line as this is ‘1’. Please view the mat layout diagrams for instructions.
Each movement mat activity usually lasts for about 20 teacher call-outs. If the children have listened carefully, processed each instruction correctly and moved the corresponding coloured brick to its new position, then at the end of all 20 call-outs, their bricks should now be in the new positions as determined by the answer key at the end of the activity e.g. All bricks end up on the top line or Green brick ends on the bottom line, rest on red line.
As children participate in these activities for each mat, they are:
- Listening carefully & staying focused
- Making sense of the language and vocabulary
- Following the instructions
- Remembering the specifics of the task or challenge in order to carry it out (working memory)
- Exercising perceptual skills, fine motor skills, eye-hand co-ordination, etc.
- Cognitively processing and carrying out the task using existing knowledge, skill and understanding
Within the many activities here, there is a focus on the development of vocabulary, spatial relationships, working memory, cognitive processing and task completion.
You can engage your six bricks mats and activities at any time of the day. For example:
- At the end of a day to simply unwind and have a little bit of fun
- First thing in the morning to sharpen the brains & get ready for learning
- Just after break to refocus attention and settle down
- As a brain-break during the course of a school day - stop whatever you are doing and re-energise the brain as you play!