Teacher Treasure Hunter Spring 2015 | Page 33

Tell Me About…

Brain Breaks

Brain breaks. That phrase gets used quite a bit and every teacher
seems to have a different idea of what they are exactly. For me, brain
breaks are allowing my students to take a break from what they are
doing in order to give their brains and bodies a chance to reset
before continuing with the previous activity.
How did I get started with brains breaks? This year, I have a
particularly rambunctious class, especially the boys. The majority of
the boys in my class have difficulty staying seated for any amount of
time. I found myself constantly trying to get them to stay seated and I
quickly discovered this was a losing battle. I was spending more time
trying to correct the behavior instead of using it to my advantage.
Enter brain breaks.

Any time we have been seated in my class for a significant period of
time, we take a brain break. For us, that means we do a dance using
a website called GoNoodle.com. GoNoodle.com has a large
collection of short videos that allow the students to get up from their
seats and move around. My classes love the videos created by the
band Koo Koo Kanga Roo and constantly clamoring for them.

Why should you
try brain breaks in
your classroom?
A kindergarten & 3rd grade
teacher share why they find
brain breaks valuable.
©2015 Teacher Treasure Hunter