Teen Mentors Reinforce Wise Way Number 1

Posted On: March 9, 2019

A newly created BrainWise lesson uses the human hand to represent the physical parts of the brain we teach in Wise Way #1. The hand brain parallels the brain drawing in the curriculum and depicts the relay center/thalamus (blue), the lizard brain/limbic system (red), and wizard brain/prefrontal cortex (green).

For this activity in one class, teen mentors reviewed Wise Way #1 with fourth graders. They went over how the five senses send signals to the brain’s relay center and trigger the lizard brain’s emotion and fight, flight and freeze centers to react without thinking. The teens emphasized that in order to stop and think before they react, the children need to learn the 10 Wise Ways in order to build connections to the wizard brain behind the forehead.

To demonstrate this, one teen put blue duct tape across the top of her palm and under her fingers to represent the relay center (thalamus). She put red duct tape around her thumb to indicate the lizard brain. She folded the lizard brain thumb under the relay center to show the two areas are hardwired. She put green duct tape across her fingernails to represent the wizard brain but kept the green out of sight as shy held up her four fingers in a stop position. She told the children that space between the relay center and the top of her fingers is where they will build brain connections to their wizard brain.

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