4 Classroom Brain Breaks and More!

“Mrs. Foxwell, I love coming into your classroom because I never know what I’m going to find!” one of my classroom aides said this to me as she walked in on my students and me exercising during math class. We were in the middle of our place value unit and were counting out numbers by doing high jumps for tens and squats for ones. One of my many educational classroom brain breaks.

classroom brain breaks and more (feature image)

I laughed at her comment as my thighs screamed with the burn of doing nine jumps and nine squats for the number 99 after having already done quite a few numbers beforehand. But this was one of our classroom brain breaks, and I was gonna see it through to the end.

Classroom Brain Breaks That Scream “I’m Educational”

I guess not every teacher turns their classroom into an exercise class during math practice, but trust me, it works and is intentional. I purposely designed our instruction to engage my students in our learning. Much like with my morning work, I wanted it fun but educational. One of the ways I did this was by intentionally incorporating movement into our daily schedule, or I created educational classroom brain breaks.

Does this mean the classroom got loud sometimes? Yes! (and that was ok!) Did we have fun? Lots of fun! Were my kids learning? Absolutely! Were some of the activities we did a little unconventional? Maybe, but I was an outside-of-the-box kind of teacher, so that my students were actively involved in the learning process! Here are four of my favorite ways that I used to get my students up and moving on a regular basis:

Gestures

Kinesthetic learning is an important tool in any classroom. Using movement, like gestures, is like having the key that opens the lock to an important treasure. When you use gestures in the classroom, you’re helping to unlock your students’ minds and allow them to make important connections and memory aides as they associate a concept with a hand motion or movement. We used it all of the time in every subject. I made some gestures up, but I also liked having the kids help me create the gesture so that it had more meaning.

For example, I had a motion for every letter sound and sight word so that when my kids were reading with me at the back table and forgot what sound the letter spelled or forgot a sight word, all I needed to do was the motion, which helped them remember.

I also used gestures for our three classroom rules every single morning! My kids would stand up and do these rules all together! After getting into the routine at the beginning of the year, I even had one of the students lead the class in saying and doing the motions for our rules! My students knew these rules by heart, and the gestures made what could be a boring part of our morning routine fun and engaging!

CLASSROOM BRAIN BREAKS: classroom rule posters

Movement

Our students have about one minute of attention every year they are old, so my first graders have around a six-minute attention span. It’s imperative that I get them up and moving throughout the day. Having kids act out skills and concepts (like our tens and ones exercise in math) using read-and-write-the-room activities or cooperative learning strategies like Quiz-Quiz-Trade are great ways to get kids moving.

I also loved incorporating music with movement, like with this Hundreds Chart Shuffle!! When my students were struggling with knowing how to use the hundreds chart to add and subtract 1 more, 1 less, 10 more, and 10 less, I knew I needed to get them up and moving!! So, I created this FREE song and dance! It’s not only fun, but it works!!

classroom brain breaks- hundreds chart shuffle dance

Classroom Cheers

What if there was a way to involve movement while building a positive classroom environment? There is!! I loved using classroom cheers in my classroom! The student who had the “Teacher’s Assistant” job in my classroom picked a new cheer for us to do each day! Then, we cheered each other on all day long! It’s a great way to get kids out of their seats while encouraging a friend!!

Some examples of when we used these cheers were after someone did work on the board, gave an answer, shared their writing with the class, or even when the entire class had finished a difficult task! Each card has the cheer and motions on it, so it’s super easy and FUN to use!!

Brain Breaks

If you haven’t tried using brain breaks in your classroom, I highly recommend them for all ages! Brain breaks during the school day help students get wiggles out, energize or calm them (depending on the brain break used), and help them maintain focus.

I used brain breaks for transitions, before and after tests, during indoor recess, when students were wiggly and needed to focus, and when students were dragging and needed a pick me up. Taking a minute or two to do a brain break can give you many more minutes of concentrated learning afterward.

Keep Students Engaged in Learning By Incorporating Movement and Classroom Brain Breaks

While keeping students engaged in learning can be a challenge, there are a lot of fun and easy classroom brain breaks you can add to your day to help! Do you have any other ways you like to get your students up and moving during learning that didn’t make the list? Let me know by leaving a comment below!! I’d love to hear!

Save Time With These Engaging Brain Breaks and Other Resources!

If you need some ready-to-go, easy-to-use classroom brain breaks to get your students moving and engaged in learning, then you’re going to love the resources below that I mentioned in this post!