[teach] Brain Breaks

Kindergarteners are antsy. There just isn't another word to describe it. They can't sit still for too long or be without something engaging. Gotta love the mind of a five and six year old!

To reign this in, we use "brain breaks" at our school, roughly every 20 minutes (or at least, we aim for 20 minutes), to give the kids a break from what they are doing. In college, it was called a "state changer". It shifts their attention and gives their brain a chance to rest and recharge. We use the Conscious Discipline program, which talks about this in further detail.

Brain breaks can look like a variety of things:
-Stretching (head/shoulders/knees/toes/change it up every time, the order and/or speed)
-Rubbing ears
-Breathing three times (we have fun, silly breathing techniques: the exhale should be longer than the inhale)
-Singing/dancing with audio only or audio plus a video
-Moving locations
-Many, many more

I wanted to share three fun videos I have "pinned" on Pinterest that have been used in my classroom: mainly so they will be on one page. These are YouTube videos, so click the link to go to their YouTube page to find more fun songs! My kiddos have so much fun with these. Enjoy!

 

 

Happy Tuesday!

"Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp." Psalm 149:3