Brain Breaks

I ran across this video on YouTube and really liked this brain break activity. The purpose of the activity is in no way related to academics (although if streched one could say it falls under the "following instructions" standard which seems to fall into our reading/ELA standards). The purpose is to wake student brains up by doing something that requires a bit of thinking or moving.

Often times I go into a classroom and the kids are zombied out and it doesn't matter how great your lesson is they are not "with it" enough to pay attention. Having them do one of these brain breaks is a great wax to wake them up both physically and mentally.

There are several in the series and I have tried a few in classes. I definitely recommend giving them a look through to see what might work in your classroom. Just type in "brain break" in the YouTube search engine and they should come up.