Regular brain breaks can help to establish a routine and make them more effective over time. Breaks should be done at least every 20 to 30 minutes, although the exact amount of time will vary depending on the year level you’re teaching. Here are a few tips from our teacher team to get the most out of this teaching tool: With all this in mind, it’s important to use these breaks in the school day effectively - not just peppering the day with them. Use these signs to indicate to your students what activity they will be doing. Short on time and want 18 ideas you can print? You can use these fun brain breaks activity cards and signs to create a ‘Brain Break Board!’ Included in this printable resource are coloured circles that can be stuck on the end of paddle pop sticks. And, of course, there are enhanced mood and energy levels for students when they get these important moments to recharge. There’s also evidence that taking breaks during creative tasks leads to improved idea generation and creative performance, translating to increased creativity and problem-solving abilities in the classroom. For example, a 2011 study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology found that taking brief breaks during tasks improved attention control and cognitive functioning - essentially improving our students’ focus and attention. The results are hard to argue with, after all. His ideas exploded, and now educators all around the world are not just incorporating movement into education but also specifically breaking up instruction time for primary learners to get up, move around and refocus their minds. Dennison was a reading specialist in California who started experimenting with the use of movement in the classroom and later founded a learning readiness program called Brain Gym that focuses on ‘edu-kinesthetics.’ Although there’s no one person who ‘invented’ brain breaks, experts tend to credit an American educator named Paul Dennison with popularising the concept. Where Did Brain Breaks Come From?īefore we dive into the ideas themselves, it’s worth taking a look at what got us here. We know you’re already up to your ears in lesson planning, reports writing and marking, so the teachers on the Teach Starter team have put together some of our favourite brain break ideas to help you break up the day and improve student well-being and productivity while you’re at it! Read on for a look at the educational research into making breaks effective in the classroom, plus some ways to give kids’ brains some much-needed rest. And the more the evidence piles up, the more educators ask us for fresh brain break ideas to add to their school day. Are you incorporating enough brain breaks into your lesson planning? The concept isn’t exactly new - teachers have been adding short mental break time throughout the day since at least the 1980s - but the educational research on the benefits keeps on growing.
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