In the same way , you can increase the mental engagement element of an activity which is physically occupying but otherwise fairly mindless. For example , suppose you want to help children to make a list in their books of some of the words they have been using . They can , of course , just copy out the list from the board. There will be times when that is all you want them to do. But there will be other times when you will want to help them get the words firmly into their heads as well as into their books. Writing the word just once does not provide much practice and it is possible to copy out words and phrases without thinking very much about what they mean. One way to increase the mental engagement and thereby to increase the chances of effective learning is to ask the children to list words in categories. Here is an example.