HandEyeBody Academy’s Have a Ball School Program teaches hand-eye coordination exercises that are creative, fun, and accessible for all ages to learn at home or in school. The challenges and brain breaks will help your students discover new ways to move, think, play, stay calm, be creative, challenge themselves, and not give up after the first dropped ball.
The Drop & Catch Challenge is a surprisingly fun challenge that kids (and adults) love to try! You will learn to trust your brain & body’s abilities, understand and practice proprioception (body awareness), and discover your true potential, especially if you’ve ever said “I’m not coordinated”!
This coordination challenge is one of the featured interactive exercises in the full Have a Ball Virtual Assembly program.
Have fun and get moving with creative movement challenges & brain games that get students and families laughing together while developing a foundation for mind-body skills such as coordination, balance, multi-tasking, and mental focus.
The videos features a blend of entertaining performances, engaging exercises, and a message on building a confident growth mindset, staying physically active at home, and practicing daily mindfulness.
Extended teaching workshops are available, both as pre-recorded videos, and live sessions that can include a Q&A with Dr. Jacob Weiss, and feedback/coaching for your students as they master each new challenge.
Sometimes you just need a few minutes at a time to get inspired and motivated for the rest of the day! The Have a Ball Brain Break Series helps you stay focused and energized throughout the day, with fun and engaging 3-5 minute videos designed to wake up your body & brain in just a few minutes.
This is a great resource both for children in virtual school and for their parents working at home!
Optional teacher training resources and support are available to help teachers and parents nurture and encourage their students’ progress and participation. Ideas for both at-home and in-school facilitation will give you the confidence to meet each student where they are at, and challenge them to improve at any level of ability.
Have a Ball’s interactive exercises inspire each student to reach for big dreams, achieve their goals, and not give up after the first dropped ball.
Did we mention that it’s FUN?! In addition to the playful interactive learning and movement exercises, the videos are filled with engaging performances, inspiring stories, and motivational messages that gets students, parents, and teachers EXCITED to participate!
Dr. Weiss, Director of HandEyeBody Academy, helps students and teachers around the world learn how to focus better, move better, and function better throughout the day, with accessible and creative brain & body exercises.
He is an educator and social entrepreneur who is passionate about building creative and healthy communities through virtual platforms and teacher training.
With a research background from Princeton University and Vanderbilt University, he also brings an expertise in designing online programs for community engagement and well-being, and will be a valuable planning partner for your team.
Dr. Weiss believes that by working together, schools, teachers, and families play an essential role in addressing the physical, cognitive, and emotional well-being of children facing unprecedented challenges.
LATTIE BROWN, TENNESSEE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Get your students out of their chairs, get them moving, and have FUN trying something new! Hand-eye coordination activities are a great low-impact exercise that can be practiced both at home and socially-distanced at school, with minimal equipment needed.
The movements emphasize crossing the midline, bi-lateral coordination, balance, rhythm/timing, vision, breathing, gross motor control, and fine motor control.
The exercises benefit all levels, from young students and beginners, to experienced student athletes, to help practice coordination, agility, body awareness, and more!
In addition to the physical benefits, the exercises are a wonderful way to enhance students’ mental focus and cognitive learning!
HandEyeBody exercises incorporate research-based strategies from applied neuroscience to help bridge the right and left hemispheres of your brain, and your overall brain-body connection and neuroplasticity (the ability for your brain to form new connections).
It’s hard to focus on your stress when you are focused on throwing and catching the ball! HandEyeBody’s innovative exercises are wonderful tools that students can learn as a mindfulness strategy to step away, calm down, and reduce anxiety.
Your students will discover Social & Emotional Learning strategies for perseverance, responding to automatic negative thoughts, and how to change the stories they tell themselves about what they can or can’t do.
And they will have fun playing with their peers, both virtually and in person! Laughing together is an important, but often missing, part of a child’s well-being. A core philosophy of the Have a Ball Program is “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” (-Victor Borge)
The Have a Ball program is part of HandEyeBody’s social enterprise mission to support non-profits and community programs that make a positive impact on the health and lives of families, neighborhoods, and communities, through exercise, movement, and wellness programs.
Your participation supports HandEyeBody’s giving of the same joy, learning, and inspiration to families and communities, both locally and around the world.
Your students and community will find meaning and learn about the value of giving back, knowing that the positive impact that they experience is being gifted to those who need it most.
