Brain Breaks do NOT have to be extravagant or a movement activities sometimes. Here a few tips to help you incorporate brain breaks into your classroom.
1. Cheat Sheet
Have a list of exercises or brain breaks close to your teaching area that you can quickly look to for ideas.
2. Popsicle Sticks
Have a cup filled with Popsicle sticks. Put a brain break on each stick to pull out of the cup when you need a brain.
3. Chunk up instructional time
By chunking up your instruction time into 15-20 blocks and allowing students from one area to another will help the brain refocus. Have students work on one thing for a time period and have them get up and get another activity to chunk up the time.
4. Free Choice in work area
This does not work in all classroom settings, but allowing students to move throughout the room choosing their own work space. Students are still held accountable to do work, yet they move when they need to and are resetting their own brain.
5. Daily Conversation
Brain breaks are often not successful the first time they are done. They need to be done consistently to get desired results and conversations about them are necessary. Talk to students about expectation and that this is not a time to fool around or be silly. Keep working on getting students to respond.
6. Centers
For different subjects, you can create a variety of centers. This is a great way to get students to feel concepts. Students are moving around work area and change centers depending around 15-20 minutes or watching for student engagement in the centers.
1. Cheat Sheet
Have a list of exercises or brain breaks close to your teaching area that you can quickly look to for ideas.
2. Popsicle Sticks
Have a cup filled with Popsicle sticks. Put a brain break on each stick to pull out of the cup when you need a brain.
3. Chunk up instructional time
By chunking up your instruction time into 15-20 blocks and allowing students from one area to another will help the brain refocus. Have students work on one thing for a time period and have them get up and get another activity to chunk up the time.
4. Free Choice in work area
This does not work in all classroom settings, but allowing students to move throughout the room choosing their own work space. Students are still held accountable to do work, yet they move when they need to and are resetting their own brain.
5. Daily Conversation
Brain breaks are often not successful the first time they are done. They need to be done consistently to get desired results and conversations about them are necessary. Talk to students about expectation and that this is not a time to fool around or be silly. Keep working on getting students to respond.
6. Centers
For different subjects, you can create a variety of centers. This is a great way to get students to feel concepts. Students are moving around work area and change centers depending around 15-20 minutes or watching for student engagement in the centers.
