School started and I don’t know about you, but I am seriously WIPED OUT. My class is a group of 6 firecrackers and I have been chasing around after them since day 1. I really wish I was exaggerating.
We have developed some routines in our class that help my rambunctious kiddos stay focused. We do have some fidgets, stress balls, and the like at their desks for work times, but nothing compares to a full blown brain break. Alas, here is my all time favorite fidget – the Tangle! They are virtually silent (well, as long as they don’t bang them on a desk, which is a whole different story), they are research based to help with focus, and kids really seem to love them. They’re also pretty non-intrusive, and inexpensive! Below is an affiliate link.
After a transition or after a work period, we have a Brain Break. I have fallen in love with GoNoodle. It is a wonderful website and does so much of the work for us. Instead of scrolling through millions of YouTube videos, they have an awesome collection of kid-friendly videos divided into multiple categories. You can decide what energy level, duration, and characters/channel you would like to use. This is so helpful for times when you need the class to be calm and relaxed, which I’ll touch on in my follow up post. Today, I’d love to show you what I have found to be useful strategies for getting the wiggles OUT so they are more likely to stay in their seats!
Since many of my sassy pants students are “too cool for school”, they always want to watch music videos with dance moves. I love the Kidz Bop channel for this, because the songs are appropriately censored and the dancing is modern but totally kid friendly. It’s also simple enough that (most) of our kids can follow along with the moves 🙂
On the flip side, many of my students have been requesting a song rather than a GoNoodle dance/activity, and I have found that some are definitely NOT school approved (shocking, I know). I made a menu of some hit songs that are appropriate for students to choose from. You can find it here as a freebie 🙂 Just note, when I play these on YouTube, I either don’t turn on the projector OR play a video that just shows the lyrics. Just because the song is appropriate does NOT mean the music video is!
So – how do I manage brain breaks? I, personally, like to add choice into our break times. I make sure that we have (at least) 6 times during our day where we can take a 2-3 minute break. It may sound like a lot, but if you met my class, you’d understand. Since I have 6 students, this is perfect. I wrote their names on popsicle sticks and pull one for each brain break. The student gets to choose if they want to pick a GoNoodle activity or a song from the menu. Every kiddo gets a turn and it helps create community along with ownership & buy-in of this time during the day.
How do YOU get your kids up and moving?
I love the tangle too! I used to use GoNoodle at my old school, but sadly no projector in my current resource room 🙁
Sarah
The Designer Teacher