Happy Monday!
Ever been stuck in a long, boring, unimaginative training filled with presenters who know everything, assume you know nothing, and who are responsible for a giant time suck of your day? Well not with FAB. My team and I attended a FAB training and it was honestly one of the best trainings I have ever attended.
F.A.B. (Fabulous Activities for the Brain) is designed to reinforce academics through movement to address the many different learning styles of students. All of the activities were hands on, relevant and easily adaptable to the students. LOVE!
Here are five reasons you need F.A.B. in your life:
FAB reinforces Common Core Objectives
One of the best parts of this program is how it gets the kids moving with still reinforcing the Common Core learning objectives. During the training, we were introduced to 10 different activities that students could use to improve their skills with money, skip counting, determining less than and greater than, and sight word practice. Inside of the book, the primary learning objective is listed at the top of each page. These activities are perfect to play during recess or to break up long standardized testing practice sessions.
FAB gets the whole body moving
F.A.B. is fabulous (pun intended) because the students are up and moving as they go through the learning activities. Instead of worksheets, students are demonstrating their practice as they retrieve the balls, match the cards, and generally engage in the activities. During the training, we were running after the balls, racing to win, and generally sweating to play the game and we were totally engaged with the process. I really wish that I have known about this when I had a classroom of 14 ten year old boys. Would have been great lol.
Easily Adaptable
All of the games were super adaptable. I could see simply changing the cards or objectives to suit your needs.
As we were playing my mind started whirring with all of the adaptations I can make with the kids in our program. We played a game of making compound words like pop and corn. I could easily see playing the game with suffixes and prefixes. We played another game with coins, which could have easily been adapted for dollars, tens, and fives to work with money skill.
Another adaptation is the use of scooters. I saw a group of children playing with scooters in another program that I am in love with. I have memories of playing on scooters in elementary school and having the inevitable crunch of fingers. These scooters have handles to help protect fingers and add stability to the children racing.
Another adaptation is the use of scooters. I saw a group of children playing with scooters in another program that I am in love with. I have memories of playing on scooters in elementary school and having the inevitable crunch of fingers. These scooters have handles to help protect fingers and add stability to the children racing.
Use materials you already have
While I'm planning on getting the scooter, many of the games just needed hoops, balls, and index cards. The picture below is simply a cut up pool noodle used as tokens. How cool is that?! After reviewing the items, it was clear that most of these things can be purchased from Dollar Tree.
Balls in a hoop. Who knew?
Alignment with Specials Staff
I love that all of this instruction occurs during specials on Friday in Physical Education. I love how it empowers special teachers and gives them the opportunity to strengthen students minds, as well as their bodies. In my old school, specials teachers weren't really looped into what was happening to the classroom and we weren't looped into their lessons. These FAB activities really create cross over support for all involved.
Overall
I was so invigorated by the training. I loved the content and how the presenters modeled it as well. The training was clear and concise, and they were open to all of the adaptations suggested by the participants. Instead of just watching a slide show, we were up playing the games, shooting the balls, flipping the cards, and racing for the money. We were so happy to win a FREE copy of the book to begin planning with our students.
I highly recommend the FAB book as a means of engaging your students. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE go and visit this site. You will be happy that you did.
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