Exercising with the Butterfly Girls to Improve Learning and Emotional Well-Being

Peconic Bay member Liala Strotman (center), a former elementary school teacher and principal, demonstrated specialized exercises to develop better concentration, relaxation, learning skills and emotional well-being with young girls in the Butterfly Effect Project, a local group whose aim is to develop self-confidence and academic skills in girls.

For example, the girls practiced the “elephant” movement, gluing their head to their shoulders and using one arm at a time and their ribs to move their whole upper body to trace “lazy eights,” with eyes focused at a distant spot. This movement activates the inner ear, releases tense neck muscles and helps develop academic skills, such as listening comprehension, speech, spelling and memory for sequences, such as in math.

Included among many other specialized activities to improve learning were also certain movements to improve emotional well-being, such as smoothing down the hair on the scalp and shoulders with both hands to help deal with anger, and a self-hug for comfort when having a bad day. In addition, deep breathing for relaxation was emphasized in many of the movements.

In demonstrating the exercises, Liala was joined by enthusiastic helpers: Peconic Bay members Vivian Daddino (foreground) and Betsy Kaplan (background).

Afterwards, the girls were given “tangram” puzzles in which they had to cut out figures on paper and figure out how to make a whole cohesive design out of them.