Give ’em a Break!
I’ve heard it said that people can pay attention, typically, one minute for every minute of their age.
My students are 14-18.
I teach on a 90-minute block.
Which means that on average, after about 15 minutes, my students are physically incapable of paying attention. I teach on a 90-minute block. 90/15 = 6.
6 changes in tempo. 6 breaks in the action. This was a daunting number to see. I use a lot of activities in class, I work hard to engage students. I’ve even considered myself creative from time to time. But to do 6 changes of gear during one class period?
What if what I’m doing requires more than 15 minutes?
How many different ways can I change up what I’m doing with a topic? How can I recharge the students and keep our class productive?
With brain breaks.
What IS a brain break?
I’m a child of the 80s, and I love playing Atari games at my neighbor’s house, and later challenging my brother on our Nintendo (he ALWAYS won). But the one thing that all those systems had in common, and most current video games I’ve seen also have in common, is the reset button.
It stops the game, lets the player refresh, get into a better place, and then move on. The player could use the reset as a chance to take a breath, apply knowledge (you die if you turn right; a coin is hidden in those bricks), and get a fresh approach a the problem, with a full stock of lives or health points.
Our students need us to hit the reset button. Their brains need a breath. They need to approach our classwork full of life.
Inspired by Annabelle Allen and her work with brain breaks, I have compiled a list of some of my favorites. The first 19 came from Annabelle’s blog, and you can find more complete descriptions there. The next bunch are from a variety of sources, including several from the Colorado Education Initiative and my own ideas of games, camp experiences, and shamelessly stolen from a number of random presentations by colleagues for which I can no longer remember whom to give the credit.
- Copy my dance moves (or other moves not so dance-y)
- Rock-Paper-Scissors (when music plays, dance. When stops, challenge)
- Use musical chairs type of partner chat (move during the music, chat when it stops)
- Look up a goofy word
- Stand up, high 5 someone, sit.
- Stand up, touch your head, sit
- Stand up, jump a few times, sit
- Stand, do 1 rock paper scissors match, sit
- Choco-choco, la-la, te-te chant with actions (fist bump, palms, back of hands)
- Stand up, switch seats with someone wearing same color shirt as you, sit.
- Stand up, move 1 seat (direction), sit.
- Stand up, turn to partner and make dumb face, sit. (1st to laugh loses!)
- Take a group selfie (slideshow at end of year, use on website or blog, or for picture talk)
- 2 lines, touch body parts with partner
- Invent a high 5 with a partner
- Drive by compliments (write 1 for each person in group and then extras. Stick on each other as a drive by)
- Handshakes & Introductions
- Handshakes & Name favorite ____
- Stop and Text/Tweet/Snap (something curricular) on phone (or post-it for a low-tech variation)
- Take a lap around the room
- Stretch together or individually
- Massage pressure point between thumb and pointer finger 30sec and switch hands
- Breathing exercises
- Cross feet and hands, bend elbows so hands by face. Breathe deeply holding for 30 sec
- Clockwise circle on foot, draw 6 with hand
- Be the Mickey Mouse on a watch. Or mirror the hands on a watch.
- Nose/ear touch with opposite hands. Then switch sides.
- Mime hiking, swimming, cycling, paddling (sitting or standing for all)
- Put fists together, point 1 thumb and other index finger. Switch. How fast can you go?
- Blink 1 eye while snapping fingers on other hand (or hop on opposite foot instead of snap…or add that)
- Forward/backward circles
- Win by getting to 21: high 5 once or twice each turn counting up.
- Aw-so-go Aw= arm horizontal at chest. SO=arm horizontal at belly. GO= Arm straight forward. Stand in a circle & signal another player. Get it wrong and you’re out.
- Toss a ball around circle and answer questions as you get the ball
- 4 corners (strongly agree/agree/disagree/strongly disagree) with various statements
- Cross crawls (touch raised knee with opposite hand, switch)
- Boot scoot (touch hand to opposite heel behind your back)
- Mirror drill (mirror your partner. Can limit to just hands or whole body)
- Tippy Toe Walk
- High Knees Walk
- Heel Walk
- Foot Rock Paper Scissors (feet together, feet apart, feet crossed)
- Chair Roller Coaster: harness on, climbing turns, drops, finish (lift harness), exit (grab stomach)
- Arms straight up, one leg straight in some direction, turn body as horizontal as you can
- Act out action verbs in a text
- Higher/lower (ss has back to board, teacher writes number. Student guesses. Class indicates higher/lower by jumping or squatting
- Make a beat (clap, snap? Unh, whoop). See how long it takes to become a recognizable pattern. (Credit: Sr. Wooly)
- Get up, touch 10 chairs not in a row, sit.
- Touch 8 elbows from other people.
- Touch 6 different colored shirts in the room.
- Rainstorm (the bigger the group, the cooler this is!)
- Human Tic Tac Toe groups of 8-9
- Ninja
- Kickboxing moves (jab/cross).
- 360 turn and dunk like you’re an NBA star
- Fast feet (Like football players running through tires, but in place)
- Alice the Camel song
- Captain’s Coming (Consider starting small & adding new actions each week or so to limit vocabulary for novices. Feel free to leave off/modify any actions you don’t like. The “mermaid” one described here is one I’d skip, but the description of the game is good.)
- Camp Songs, especially those with hand or body motions
- Baby Shark song
- Children’s songs
Most of these would take less than 5 minutes, many could take only 5-15 seconds, but they can provide that needed mental reset button that students need to stay engaged and work out some physical energy in order to be able to concentrate. Do these help students acquire language? If done in the target language frequently enough, they may directly do so. But the general brain science behind these does mean that they can help students learn better, in general. So share these with your non-world languages colleagues too!