Brain Breaks

I am having a great time in kindergarten! This is my Brain Break Jar. When we've been sitting a little too long, we can pick a popsicle stick out of the jar and do whatever it says.

"Hug your knees" and "Wag your tail" are a couple of the sticks. My mentor  in college, Martha Coombs, said that this kind of activity is really one of the perks of teaching in elementary school. I mean, there aren't that many jobs where it is okay to say "You know what? This activity really isn't going very well. Let's all stop for a minute and do the Mexican Hat Dance."

I added plain no-movement purple sticks to our jar so we can play a game of ZAP. We'll keep pulling out sticks and doing what they say until we pull a purple stick. ZAP! (I want them to learn how to play the game of ZAP with word cards later, so I'll model how to play a game and how "getting zapped" isn't terrible, it's part of the game.)

I originally found this idea on Pinterest from this blog:
http://www.mchaffiek.blogspot.com/

I made up my own movement ideas, I found a list of movement words here: http://makememusical.blogspot.com/2011/01/101-movement-words-fantastic-list-for.html

Another teacher uses a timer to move for one minute in her popsicle stick movement idea: http://keepcalmandteachon.blogspot.com/2011/04/acitivity-sticks.html

Enjoy!