Herons inspire creative writing……

For the last few weeks I have been watching Herons on a local lake. There are four or five of them and they all have different characters. They are huge solitary birds who spend a vast amount of time sitting and watching, just watching. Then every now and again they silently reach out and delicately eat a snack.

Like the slightly unusual child in the school playground they get poked, harassed and bullied by the gulls and crows who appear to think it’s fun to get a reaction.

This Mind Map records the words I have been using to describe these amazing birds.

Herons: an observation from NewMillerDam

Advantages of Mind Mapping

Mind Mapping is a simple, practical tool for improving your creative-thinking, planning and problem-solving abilities. It will help you:

Generate more ideas: Mind Mapping allows you to start quickly and generate more ideas in less time. You don’t have to edit or order your thoughts; just start with a creative doodle in the center of your page and begin printing words on lines emanating from the center as you think of them. The free-ranging format — adding words to one branch one moment, then skipping over to another branch the next — increases your chances of generating new ideas.

Make new connections: Mind Mapping allows you to represent a tremendous amount of information in a relatively small space. You can have all your notes for a topic on one piece of paper, with your ideas arranged in a way that encourages you to see relationships between them. Mind Mapping helps you see connections among things that may have seemed completely separate.

Improve your memory: Remembering your material becomes much easier. Colors, images and key words — three central ingredients of Mind Maps — are much more engaging to the brain than sentences. A well-made Mind Map is almost impossible to forget!

Use your whole brain: Half a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Mind Mapping helps you strengthen your analytical left brain by training you to look for the most essential key words. At the same time, it stimulates the right brain by encouraging you to use colors and images.

Taken from Advantages of Mind Mapping all rights acknowledged.

Mind Maps for Education

I am currently working on a project to show how Mind Mapping and Mind Maps can be used in Education right from reception through to Sixth Form.

These first Mind Maps are spelling sheets which are being used by Year 5 pupils. They work on the founding principle of Mind Mapping: Image and Association as developed by Tony Buzan.  Each Mind Map is produced using iMindMap software and can be used in the very useful ‘presentation mode’ displaying one branch and image at a time to enable the pupils to record the words themselves rather than working from a prepared linear list.

Spelling sheet Year 5

Each week the pupils were given a list of 20 spellings to learn for a test the following week. I have converted the list into a Mind Map for some of the pupils and I will be monitoring the performance in the weekly tests.

Spelling sheet Year 5

Mind Map to learn the order of the planets

iMindMap update and ideas featuring recipes

I am pleased to let you know that in the latest edition of the Buzan Online news letter I have two Mind Maps featured. While talking Emily at Buzan Online it came up that I enjoy cooking and had started recording recipes as Mind Maps to make them easier to follow, particularly for younger children to use.

Follow this link to the newsletter and my featured recipes.

I will be producing more in this format soon and will be publishing an ‘e’ book of Mind Mapped recipes very soon.