40 Brain Breaks! bit.ly/40brainbreaks

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1 40 Brain Breaks! bit.ly/40brainbreaks *Teachers, if you want to share these with other teachers, give them the link bit.ly/40brainbreaks. 1. Cross fingers in both hands and touch them together. 2. Walk to your seat backwards. 3. Double thumb war. Partners face each other and one crosses arms to do thumb war with both hands at the same time. Try this in groups too. Watch students try to make it work. 4. Watch the How to Tie a Shoelace in 1 Second Video, then try it. youtu.be/wmunjnnyaia 5. Haiku Switch First, teach students how to write a haiku with Example: Line 1 5 syllables It s Summertime, yeah! Line 2 7 syllables Waves slosh cool on my toes, nice. Line 3 5 syllables. Hate that sunburn though. Everyone writes a first line then passes it to a partner who writes the 2nd line, then passes it back so that the person who wrote the first line can finish it. youtu.be/kinbpl1zxfi 6. Switch seats. Give them 60 seconds to switch seats for a period of time. 7. Toss a ball (hacky sack or nerf) around the classroom. Then have them throw and say a vocabulary word.

2 8. Balance on one foot for 30 seconds. Make it more challenging by having hands at side. Switch feet after 30 seconds. Try it with eyes closed. 9. Mirror Drill Partners face each other. One drives the action; the other does the mirror opposite. After 30 seconds switch drivers. Finally, tell them to lead each other. 10. Bodyguard This one comes from improvencyclopedia.org. Everyone picks someone to be their bodyguard, and somebody to be their assassin. Don t say out loud who picked who for what. It starts, and everyone tries to protect themselves from their assassin, by trying to keep their bodyguard between themselves and their assassin. After several minutes of chaos everyone reveals who was picked for what. 11. Penny Catch This is that activity where you stack pennies on your elbow and catch them. Hand out pennies to your class and watch them go at it. One is plenty hard at first. As soon as someone masters it, have them add more pennies or switch to their non dominant arm! 12. Group Students mingle, mingle, mingle and then you say, Group! And they have to get into groups of 5. Whoever didn t get matched up has to do 3 jumping jacks. Change up the number by saying, Group 3, or whatever number you want them to do. 13. Pen Flip A pen (or pencil) flip is where you try to flip a pen around in the air a certain number of times. Again, switch to the non dominant hand as soon as they look like they re getting it. 14. Hand circles Point your index fingers at each other and make them go in opposite circles. 15. Write backwards. Write name backwards with your goofy hand. Or write anything backwards. 16. Palms Facing You Move one hand side to side and the other one up and down, then switch hands.

3 17. Sound ball This is an improv game that requires trying a few times before they get it. Divide class into teams of 5 to 10. Each team stands in a circle. They throw sounds at each other like so Juan makes a sound and points at Erika. She catches the sound by making the same sound and then throws a different sound to another student who continues the process. This can be done with sounds, words, phrases, or vocabulary. 18. Count to 10 Group tries to count to 10. But they aren t allowed to do it in a preset order. It must be random. In other words, no one gets to lead. If two people say a number at the same time, they go back to Cross Body Over the head and through your hair to touch your ear. Easy. But it begins to wake up the brain. I ll use this in conjunction with getting attention. Like this: Point up at the ceiling if you hear my voice. Run your hand through your hair to touch the ear on the other side. 20. Finger Thumb Cross hands and hook thumbs. Use the index finger on your right hand to touch all the fingers on the left hand. Go through the process with all the fingers. 21. Group Story In a group, tell a story like this: Each person in the group says a sentence. Keep going around for 90 seconds. Harder each person tells one word of the story. Another variation Tell the story in alphabetical order so that each sentence must begin with the next letter of the alphabet. 22. Face Ball This is like word ball only each student makes a face and points at the next student who mimics that face then morphs it into a face she makes. She then passes her face to another student, and so on. 23. Pick Favorite Students pick their favorite and explain why they like it. 24. Finger Lattice Put right forefinger between left pinky and ring finger. Then move the forefinger up between the middle finger and ring finger while the middle right finger follows and takes it s place. Go all the way up and down your hand.

4 25. Trace your hand on a piece of paper. Then, add details to make it look like an animal or something else. 26. Walk sideways around the room and give all the other students a fist bump. 27. Quick Drawing Break 90 Second Quick Draw of whatever is on your mind or whatever gets selected in some fashion like have words in a hat and a student picks one. Harder 90 second quick draw with your goofy (non dominant) hand. 28. Math ball This is like word ball, but you play it like this: I ll write an example in script form: Jose 5 (points to Sarai) Sarai Plus (points to Tanisha) Tanisha 8 (points to Satori) Satori Equals 13 (points to Frank) Frank starts a new math problem 6 (points to Tanisha) Tanisha Minus (points to Satori) Satori 2 (points to Sarai) Sarai Equals 4 (points to ) 29. Initials Sentence (or title)write your initials, and make a short sentence which uses your initials as the starting letter of each word of the new sentence. Harder your initials must be at the end of the words of the short sentence. Like this: My full name is Arthur Seay Lieberman. Armpits sound loud. Harder Javelin a eat s fue l. 30. Cross Body Ear Touch Reach around the back of your head and touch your ear. Then do it with your other hand. 31. Cross Calf Massage Put your right foot up on a chair and massage your calf with your left hand.

5 32. Line Up Challenge Ask students to line up by height, but they can t talk. 33. Line Up Challenge Alphabetical order without talking. 34. Hidden Treasure Challenge Hide something in the room ask students to find it. You can have them silently tell you in some way if you want the game to go on, or you can have them shout it out. 35. Guess a Fact Look up a fact and have them ask questions about it until they guess it. I have students guess my middle name. I only answer yes or no questions. I ve had this last for months. Then, we just pull it out whenever we need a mental challenge brain break. 36. Eyebrow Smoothing Lay left hand across the top of your head and smooth your right eyebrow. 37. Walk Low Walk around the room with knees bent. Do it for 30 seconds. Fun to do with music on. 38. Superman Pretend to lift up a heavy weight. See who can act it out the best. 39. Guess the Vocabulary Word Student acts out a word and others try to guess it. 40. Group Drawing Everyone starts a drawing. Then at a signal passes it to the next person, then pass it again at the signal. Keep passing until it gets back to the original person. Teachers, if you want to share these with other teachers, give them the link bit.ly/40brainbreaks