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Executive Functioning Skills- Additional Teacher Info

Executive Functioning Skills

Executive function is the term used to describe a set of mental processes that helps us connect past experience with present action. We use executive function when we perform such activities as planning, organizing, strategizing and paying attention to and remembering details. Executive function skills allow us to focus our attention, filter distractions, and switch mental gears. The ability to manage time effectively is also part of executive function.

These skills allow us to finish our work on time, ask for help when needed, wait to speak until we’re called on and seek more information.

Executive Functioning Skills Include:

  • Executive functioning (EF) is a way of describing how well we manage information and our behavior
  • EF describes how well the frontal lobe is functioning, which is the last part of the brain to fully develop
  • EF describes ‘how’ we do what we do 

What are the needs of my students? (Refer to last year's classes)

My assessment:

Doing Skills
Response inhibition
Emotional control
Sustained attention
Task initiation
Flexibility
Goal directed persistence

Thinking Skills

 Planning
Organization
Time management
Working memory
Metacognition

When you think about teaching children about Executive Functions what comes to mind?

  • Do you imagine playing games like Spotlight to help you “Move with Thought”?
  • Do you imagine teaching children what their attention cycle is and how to “coach” their brains to recognize when they “Drift”?
  • Do you imagine helping children sequence the steps to completing their morning routines?
  • Do you imagine having “Cognitive Conversations” about what executive functions are and when students use them?
  • Do you imagine bouncing a playground ball to help children encode their spelling words?
  • Resource LINK:
  • http://www.lynnekenney.com/20-activities-to-improve-executive-function/ Links to an external site.

focus

YOUNGER: Watch(Whole Class, Stations/Center Time/BYOD, Individual) the Attention Engine Video: http://www.lynnekenney.com/students-inattentive-try-the-flashlight-technique-ef/ Links to an external site.

OR

OLDER: Escalator Video (Whole Class or Individual)

Stuck On An Escalator - Take Action Links to an external site.Stuck On An Escalator - Take Action

 

 

How can we take the following activity ideas and create activities on canvas and activities that incorporate content/skills?

K – 2nd Grade: Executive Function Activities

  1. Card games (Crazy Eights, Uno Links to an external site., Blink Links to an external site., and Set Links to an external site.) and board games (Sorry! Links to an external site., Battleship Links to an external site., Checkers Links to an external site.). These games help you practice cognitive flexibility.
  2. Musical chairs, four square, dodgeball, and tether ball (these games require paying attention and inhibition)
  3. Simon Says also improves attention, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility.
  4. Solving puzzles Links to an external site. and brain teaser books improve problem-solving abilities as well as cognitive flexibility.

2nd to 6th Grade: Executive Function Activities

  1. Card games and board games exercise working memory, quick decision making, and practice with building strategies. Some examples of this are Hearts, Bridge, Rummy, and Chess.
  2. Physical activities that require constant monitoring of your environment like soccer, baseball, and flashlight tag improve executive function skills.
  3. Playing a musical instrument, singing, and dancing all improve attention, cognitive flexibility, and inhibition.
  4. Brain teasers, crossword puzzles, math and number puzzles, The Sentence Zone Links to an external site., and spatial puzzles like Rubik’s Cubes Links to an external site. improve working memory, mental flexibility, and cognitive flexibility.

7th to 12th Grade: Executive Function Activities

  1. Focus on activities that promote the planning process. Even learning to do the laundry, a multi-step activity, will help with this.
  2. Strategy games and logic puzzles exercise working memory, planning, and attention. Settlers of Catan Links to an external site. is a great game for this.
  3. Yoga and meditation develop sustained attention, reduce stress, and improve decision making.
  4. Study skills Links to an external site. instruction improves organizational skills, time management, self-monitoring.

https://www.bonnieterrylearning.com/blog/activities-improve-executive-function-skills/ Links to an external site.

& Center on the Developing Child Harvard University