MOVEMENT BREAKS OR QUIET BRAIN BREAKS: WHICH DO I USE?

In my last post, I explained the reasons that providing frequent brain breaks in the classroom actually saves instructional time. How frequently do students need brain breaks? As a rule of thumb, you can determine the approximate attention span of your students by multiplying their chronological age by two or three, with the resulting number being in minutes. So a class of four-year-olds would have an attention span of 8-12 minutes. A class of ten-year-olds could have an attention span of 20-30 minutes. However, I recommend erring on the shorter side of those ranges, mostly thinking in terms of simply doubling the chronological age. For students with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the time could be considerably shorter.

Let’s look now at the two types of brain breaks: movement breaks and quiet breaks. What are examples and benefits of each?

Movement Breaks

Movement breaks are especially beneficial for students with executive functioning challenges, such as Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). However, all students need frequent opportunities to move. Think of the last time you sat through a lengthy presentation at an educational conference. Didn’t you start to feel tired and unfocused as the break time was approaching, and didn’t it feel good to get up and stretch when the opportunity finally arrived?

Our students have that same need. Movement breaks are best used when you see students starting to wiggle or squirm in their seats, or when they haven’t had movement breaks, recess, or gym time for a while. Movement breaks increase blood flow to the brain, increasing the students’ ability to learn. Here are some examples of movement breaks:

Wall push-ups
Floor push-ups
Jumping jacks
Activities at GoNoodle.com
Fast-paced “Simon Says”
Sensory walks
Animal walks (bear walks, elephant walks, duck walks, etc.)
Sit-ups
Jogging in place
Hopping on one foot or both feet
Toe touches and stretches toward the sky
Dancing in place to a lively song

Quiet Breaks

Quiet breaks are best used when the students have become over-stimulated in the classroom—possibly because you made a lesson so fun! They can sometimes be a better option for students who get over-stimulated by movement breaks. Here are some examples of quiet breaks for students:

Listening to their own breathing or heartbeats
Directed drawing
Air drawing (students pair up; one student draws a picture in the air while the other tries to guess what it is)
Doodling (can be with the nondominant hand)
Cooling the soup (cupping hands in front of their mouths, imagining a hot bowl of soup in those hands, and slowly blowing on the bowl to cool it off)
Chair pull-ups (students sit in their chairs and pull up on the side of the chairs as if each student is trying to lift up their chair while sitting in it)
“Flower and Candle” breathing (students pretend to hold a flower in front of their noses and slowly breath in the flower’s scent deeply; then they pretend to have a candle in front of them and slowly blow it out)
Heads on desks, listening to the teacher read a short story
Taking a 30-second nap
Watching a calming video (can be found online)

Combining Movement Breaks and Quiet Breaks

Often, the best way to offer brain breaks is to combine the two types of breaks! Start with a movement break to help get the students’ blood flower to their brains and increase their attention spans. Once the students have had their movement break, do a quiet break afterward. This gives the students a chance to calm themselves after the stimulation of the movement break and become more regulated and ready to learn. Students receive the benefits of both types of breaks, and the whole process doesn’t need to take more than 3-5 minutes.

I hope this post has helped you find options for brain breaks that you might not have known before! In my next post, I’ll share more specific on when and how to carry out brain breaks successfully in the classroom.