After attending two of Eric Jensen's conferences I know more than ever how important it is to incorporate brain breaks throughout the day in your classroom. Changing states is important to learning. I used several brain breaks last school year and it was a lifesaver. Students and parents loved it. I could see kids giving themselves those quiet brain breaks during the state test last year. I know some may not believe me, but I had a handful of discipline problems (most happened outside the classroom) and I attribute some of that to these brain breaks. The kids also knew when it was time for one and they would come up and ask me if we could take a brain break. They loved them and it took less than three minutes every time. Think of those three minutes as an investment in having them engaged for more time than you would otherwise. Do not take too much time teaching these brain breaks, just explain real quick and then do it. I am compiling a list explaining the brain breaks which I will post real soon.
I was on pinterest the other day and I saw an idea of putting brain breaks on popsicle sticks to choose randomly and then I got an idea. Why not put the names of those brain breaks on a random name generator and use technology? I went to Super Teacher Tools and started plugging away the names of some of the brain breaks (more will be added later) for the random name generator. Let me know what you think. All you have to do is go to the random name generator and plug the names of the brain breaks that you would like and voila, you have a random brain break generator. In case you haven't used this site, here it is and Enjoy!
http://superteachertools.com/
By the way, the above link is also great for randomly calling on students and forming groups!
