It’s THAT time of year. The one where everyone is on the countdown to summer vacation but before you can get there you have to make it through hours of testing all while trying to keep your restless students engaged and focused for the last stretch. We can’t help with all the testing, but we can remind you just how beneficial it is to keep your students moving! Exercise gets oxygen to the brain so students will retain all the review material and will feel more settled and better focused. Here are some brain break ideas that incorporate review!
Scoot
This popular method of review allows students to keep learning while moving. Each desk has a number and a question. Students move from desk to desk, and answer the question in the corresponding space on their answer sheet. If they are at seat number 4, they put their answer in box number 4. When you say, “SCOOT,” they move to the next desk. It’s helpful to have students practice just moving from seat to seat the first time, and then they’ll be ready to move and review. Click here to access a FREE SCOOT Template from Teachers Pay Teachers and create your own review game that gets your kids up and scooting!
Freeze Dance
Turn to a kid-appropriate Pandora station and put on a little music. When the music stops, the kids have to freeze in place! This can be a quick break to get rid of the wiggles or if you need to fit in more review, every time they stop ask a question.
Go Noodle
Take a quick brain break with Go Noodle! These can take very little time and can be done right there in the classroom.
The Walking Classroom
Our personal favorite for a much needed educational brain break is of course, The Walking Classroom! Need to go over figurative language again? Listen to idioms or similes and metaphors! Need to review the water cycle? There’s a podcast for that too! The Walking Classroom is a wonderful way to incorporate exercise and review key concepts students have to know for the test.
Monthly, we have Buddy Day at our school. Our class is paired up with a younger class for the morning. We have a 7 Habits focus and an academic focus. The last month’s Buddy Day had a “move while you learn” academic focus. We split the classes in half and while one group did Go Noodle and other movement based activities, I took one half on a Walking Classroom trip! We then switched groups, so I got a good amount of exercise that day! The 4th grade had seen us leave the building regularly and were excited to participate and find out what we had been up to. They enjoyed “Who’s On First” and look forward to next year when they might get to do it regularly!
These are great! Go Noodle has been a lifesaver for me over the past two years or so. This holistic idea of learning is vital to our students’ development. Thanks for advocating, TWC!
I like to incorporate small brain breaks throughout the day. My group this year is VERY social, so sometimes I put a timer on for 5 minutes and they have to all stand up and go talk to a friend. Sometimes I give them a topic, sometimes I just let them chat about whatever. I found that this really helps cut down on the talking during inappropriate times because they know I will build in time in the day to allow them to socialize.
I also like playing the mirror game to get them up and moving. A student gets to demonstrate a move (a stretch, dance, yoga pose, exercise, etc) and the rest of the class has to mimic it.
These are all great resources. I have given my students choice of listening to a podcast that is related to our test subject and they love it. I will list three on the board and then they pick. Oh, the power of choice.
We use scoots a lot as a grade level. We have a room that we tape them up in and the students get to walk around and complete all of the math problems at their own pace. This does take some training, but it is a great way to get kids moving.
This is a great reminder to help make it through the last part of the year!! Thanks!!
I love the Scoot activity. I am planning to include this activity in my lesson plan in the next two weeks as I prepare to submit ASW. Thanks, The Walking Classroom for this education brain break idea.