Brain breaks are a great way to keep students fresh and engaged between lessons. We know students need movement, and with less time for recess, well timed brain break activities can offer just that. It can also keep students focused and motivate them to get their work finished. Here are 4 simple and fun brain break ideas that your elementary students will love.
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Dry Erase Dice: Roll an Action
I just love these large, dry erase foam dice from S&S Worldwide. They’re excellent quality, and can be used for so many classroom purposes! They’re also a great brain break tool. Write actions on each side of the die, roll, or have a student roll, and then the whole class performs the action.
My favorite part about this brain break is that you can change up the actions, allow students to pick actions, and tie actions into what your currently learning. For example, write the action on one die and then addition problems on the other. Roll, and have students do the action based on the sum. So, if you rolled “touch your toes” and 2+3, students would touch their toes 5 times.
You can also play “find someone who” with this brain break as well which allows your students to talk, move, and get to know each other! You can have them find someone who has the same favorite color, has been to a particular place, has an older brother, and so on. The possibilities are endless, and I bet your students will love coming up with fun actions!
What Would You Do?
Not all brain breaks have to have kids dancing and wiggling all around. Sometimes it’s helpful to have a true brain break! This What Would You Do? Card Game in a jar is perfect for just that. It’s a simple concept that could bring some great discussions into your classroom. As an added bonus, students will be working on speaking and listening skills at the same time. This game can be played sitting in a circle, or students can stay at their seats. Simply have a student pull a card and read the scenario. Then, give students time to think about their answer. You can have them share with their group, a partner, or pick a few students to share out to the class. You could even pick a few students to act out the scenario and then discuss what other students might have done differently.
Another way to play is have students in small groups, give each group a card, and have them discuss. Then, each small group can share their scenario and what they thought. This game includes 101 cards that cover so many relevant topics for our students.
Funky Chicken Card Game
This Funky Chicken Card Game is the perfect game for wiggly students who need some laughter and movement. The concept is simple. Each student picks a card and keeps it face down. When you say go, they flip it over and start doing the action on the card silently, over and over. Their goal is to find another student doing the same action and do their dance together. You can just play once for a quick brain break or a few times for a longer break. Just have students swap cards. This can also be played in small groups rather than whole class. I guarantee students will be giggling and moving to this silly brain break activity!
Charades
This kid friendly version of the classic game of Charades is a perfect, fun, and simple brain break! You can play whole class, in small groups, or in partners. Students pick a card and act out one of the actions on the card. If you’re playing whole class, you can use the include die to tell students which action 1, 2, or 3, on the card to act out. However, I think it’s simpler with a class to just tell them that today they need to act out a specific number. For little kids who may not be able to read, I love this version of the game because there’s always a picture for the first activity. With 150 cards and 450 actions to act out, this game is fun for the whole year!
You might also be interested in:
- Calm Down Kit Ideas
- Free At Home Parent’s Reading Support Guide
- Teaching Students to Show, Not Tell in their Writing
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