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Brain Breaks

A few years ago, I heard a speaker talk about the importance of class culture by using humor. I implemented brain breaks that year and it was a hit! There are a couple options:

1. GoNoodle

2. YouTube Videos

GoNoodle is a fun website that offers free videos to get students up and moving or calm and relaxed. My students did not get into it too much because I think they felt they were too cool to dance around. But, maybe you can get it to work for your classroom.

My brain breaks evolved into silly YouTube videos. I started off the year with a few that I found and eventually, my students were submitting videos. It was a moment of pride when their video was viewed in class. Students talked about our brain breaks on evaluation forms, with their parents, and with their peers. It was a big hit!

By having students submit videos, I was able to preview them and create a list for later use. I would remind students that videos could not contain anything with foul language, racist, religious, etc. I still received videos that were inappropriate on occasion, but it opened the door to have individual conversations.

Some of the channels we really enjoyed are linked here:




What do you do to give students a break?
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