Cassandra Halko and Sarah Mallory
Happy Body Happy Brain is an instructional resource for elementary teachers created by Art + Ed graduate students Cassandra Halko and Sarah Mallory! They came up with this easy to use book to help teachers come up with quick ways to integrate movement and kinesthetic learning in to their lessons.
Their motivation for this project was to create an easy way for any teacher – regardless of training in kinesthetic pedagogy – to be able to easily and successfully integrate movement into their teaching, rather than having “movement time” be separate.
As both students in Art + Ed and teachers, Sarah and Cassandra noticed that many classrooms are student-centered and collaborative for intellectual learning. While there are lots of times for student movement throughout the school day, they are usually separate from learning time, like a “wiggle break” or recess.
Core Beliefs
- The stationary student body is oppressed! Or…just not being utilized as a tool to aid our brains in creativity and intellectual practice.
- We believe that a partnership between the mind and the body in all aspects of elementary learning is essential to the student’s well being and success.
During their research, Sarah and Cassandra asked a number of teachers about how often their students move and learn at the same time – most teachers said their students are seated for probably about 80% of their 6-8hr school day!
Check out a few pages from Sarah and Cassandra’s Happy Body Happy Brain: A Celebration of the Mind-Body Connection!
