Brain Breaks for Movement

Overview

Staying focused for extended periods can be difficult for students of all ages and adults as well. With the shift to remote learning, staying focused has become more difficult than ever before as learning from home introduces new and plentiful distractions. Another difficult aspect of learning from home is that there are fewer opportunities for students to engage in physical activity as running at recess and everyday transitions are on pause. A lack of frequent breaks for physical activity can lend itself to increased stress and lowered productivity, both of which have also been exacerbated by the current pandemic.

To help students stay on task, focused, and engaged, embed short breaks for physical activity into your daily schedule. Even when at home, you can encourage students to step away from their devices and get moving with various free movement activities:

• Cosmic Kids Yoga guides students through kid-friendly yoga lessons.
• GoNoodle shares fun songs, dances, and games.
• Uju Videos’ “would-you-rather?” videos prompt students to do a physical activity based on their answer to a given question as well as other activity-based games.

Regardless of the activity you choose to share with your students, these short breaks for physical activity not only get your students moving but also help to improve focus, keep students on task, and help to improve classroom behavior.