Brain Breaks for Kids

It’s vital to use brain breaks throughout the school day with children. These types of activities are used to activate, energize, and stimulate a child’s brain. When you incorporate brain breaks into your day, this helps improve a child’s ability to concentrate when you go back to classroom work. Research shows that children should have some sort of brain break every 25-30 minutes. You could use songs or chants with actions, games, fingerplays exercise, and more! Just a quick 5-10 minute break goes a long way!

In my Songs and Rhymes for Transition Times book, I share 30 brain breaks in three categories: action breaks, crossing the midline exercises, and finger plays. My book is available in my store or on Amazon.

Today I’m sharing my favorite brain break ideas! To start, here are 5 songs from my book. These give children the chance to move their bodies and release some energy! They are set to songs with familiar tunes and you don’t need musical instruments or a beautiful singing voice to use them in your classroom.

I recommend printing them so you can memorize the words or have them displayed in your classroom.

You can download the free printable of these songs RIGHT HERE.

GoNoodle has so many videos online that are amazing! They incorporate actions, yoga, and dance into songs so kids love them! You can find them on YouTube or on their website.

My kids love this video!

Another YouTube channel I use is Cosmic Kids Yoga. These are so fun because she shares a story while doing easy yoga moves. This is great for practicing listening skills!