If you’re a classroom teach in primary or elementary school chances are you are familiar with the idea of brain breaks. If so, scroll down to find a list of useful brain break resources for use in your classes.
For those who aren’t yet in the know, a brain break is a short break from learning with the intent to provide students with a mental break to help them re-energize, re-focus and relax.
A brain break should take just 1-3 minutes. Research has show that taking a brain break can help to improve work efficiency and student performance, and reduce challenging behaviour.
When should you schedule a brain break?
It’s best to to plan your brain breaks to take place before students hit the stage of feeling fatigued or bored. This will obviously be determined by the age and development of your student group, the content being studied and how ‘on task’ the student’s are at the time.
As counter intuitive as it may feel, regularly breaking up the lesson by taking a few minutes to refocus can be invaluable to the student’s productivity overall.
Awesome Brain Breaks Ideas & Resources
8 Fun Breathing Exercises for Kids: Free, printable breathing exercise cards. Choose a card and have your kids relax into their brain break.
Printable Kids Yoga Poses Cards: A great free resource that’s great for school aged kids. Kids can make their bodies into a series of yoga poses.
Sun Salutation Yoga Sequence for Kids: A kid friendly version of the traditional yoga sun salutation. Available as a printable poster for your classroom.
Printable Body Shapes for Kids Cards: The kids will ave a great time making body shapes with these silhouette prompt cards. A great way to lift the mood in your classroom.
The Ultimate Library of Yoga for Kids on YouTube: Great yoga for kids YT videos. Sorted by age recommendation and duration, there is something for every classroom on this list.
7 YouTube Channels That Get Kids Moving and Grooving: Need to get the wiggles out? These are great YT channels for getting kids to move and groove when it’s time for a break.
Dance Hits From Around the World – Kids World Citizen: Be inspired by music from around the globe to take a dancing brain break.
10 Crossing the Midline Brain Breaks: Crossing the midline is such an important motor skill. Here are ten great ways to help kids cross the midline.
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Christie Burnett is a teacher, presenter, writer and the mother of two. She created Childhood 101 as a place for teachers and parents to access engaging, high quality learning ideas.
