Teacher’s Brain

4 Engaging Brain Break Activities Your Students Will Love

Wondering if you should be adding in more brain breaks to your days with your students?

Think of brain breaks as super important timeouts for our little ones in elementary school. They’re not just about taking a break – they’re like power-ups for our students! 

brain breaks for kids

These short breaks do more than give a breather from lessons; they actually help our kids think better, feel happier, and make the whole classroom experience way more awesome. 

In elementary, every day is a mix of excitement and learning, throwing in brain breaks is like adding a secret ingredient to help our little learners grow and have a blast.

What is a brain break? 

Brain Breaks are short activities that help energize your students. They last about 1 to 5 minutes. They require no or little prep and help send oxygen to the brain to help students retain information.

Looking for brain break activities? I have you covered! 

There are many things you can do like getting some physical activity, watching a short video on YouTube, taking a dance break, playing a game, or making a craft. One of my favorite brain break activities is coloring! 

If you are looking for some high-quality coloring sheets that will keep your students occupied, these are perfect for you. 

Dinosaur Coloring Pages

brain break coloring pages for kids

These dino coloring pages make great discussion starters and writing prompts!

Unicorn Coloring Pages

unicorn coloring pages for kids brain breaks

These unicorn coloring pages are the perfect magical break from learning. 

Winter Coloring Pages

winter coloring pages

These help keep students and you calm and make great wall decorations!

For even more brain break fun, you can check out this brain break activity resource! 

brain breaks for kids

This is my favorite collection of 48 different Brain Breaks. These task cards can be used as transitions, breaks during an activity, something to raise or lower the energy of the group, team-building activities, and so much more!

What’s included?

• 48 Printable Task Cards in Black and White (4 per page) PDF

• 48 Printable Task Cards in Color (4 per page) PDF

• 48 Printable 8×10 Cards in Color (1 per page) PDF

• 48 Goofle Slides in Color for Digital Displays or Sharing at a Distance

• 2 Editable Slides to Create Your Own Brain Breaks (Google link digital option provided in the PDF)

Place them on a ring, on popsicle sticks, or in a crayon box for easy storage!

Use the Google Slides in presentation mode to randomly pick a brain break.
Looking for more classroom management tips, check out my post here!

School Holiday Door Decorating for Christmas Ideas

Our school asked us to decorate our door every year for the holidays.  For teachers, the holidays is not the time to usually ask us to do “extra” projects even if we enjoy the task.  It does make the school look festive though. To make it a little fun, the administration usually makes it into a contest so we can win gift cards for holiday shopping.  Here are a few holiday door decoration ideas!

Holiday Door and Display Decorations

Christmas Bulletin Board
by The Homeschool Style – Katie Ring

Let it Snow Door Decoration
by Teacher’s Brain – Cindy Martin 

Christmas Decoration Bulletin Board
by Allie P’s Practical Preschool

 

Snoopy Door Decoration
By Tammy Cleghorn “The kids loved that the lights actually lit up!”

Elfie Picture Holiday Door
by Instagram @misschloe91

If you haven’t seen Joey Udovich’s door designs, you are missing out! She has a ton of them for the whole year in her TpT store.  Here is an adorable holiday door design to Deck the Halls!

 

Winter Door Decoration
Don’t Have a Meltdown Keep Your Cool

Bear Cave Winter Door Decoration
by Debora Marines TeachMagically

Winter Door Decoration
Hoot Hoot Hooray Snow is on it’s Way

Simple Door Christmas Decoration
By Lisa Taylor Teaching the Stars

Doing writing with winter toppers is great for window decorations too!

Holiday door decorations can be fun, but what about the windows? These reindeer want ads were my favorite window display activity I did every year for the holidays.  Students learned about classified ads and practiced fine motor skills.

Find MORE Door Decorating Ideas HERE


 

New Years TEACHER Giveaway

Just in time to start the new year off right…. A TEACHER TpT Gift Card GIVEAWAY!

Just click the links, follow a teacher store, write the follow number in the area provided and click enter. The more stores you follow, the better your chance are to win. Good LUCK! I hope YOU get to enjoy a Teachers Pay Teachers Shopping Spree! Happy New Year!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Say Yes To The Live, Joy, Lust For Life, Frohsinn

Strategies for Teaching Comprehension

As if teaching the basics of reading is not enough, you are responsible for teaching the most important skill of reading… comprehension.  So your students can read.  GREAT! But, if they can’t understand what they read… Huston, we have a problem.  I always wondered when I would see posts that say, “If you can read this, thank a teacher” how many people can’t read it?  How many can read it, but still don’t understand what it means?  While looking at ways to improve your literacy instruction, try these 5 strategies to improve reading comprehension.

  1.  Activate Prior Knowledge
  2.  Questioning
  3. Analyzing Text Stucture
  4. Visualization
  5. Summarizing

When you use these five strategies, students will begin to comprehend naturally.  Activating prior knowledge is one of my favorite ways to engage students in reading.  Research has shown that comprehension improves when students are engaged.  What better way to engage students than to bridge their old knowledge with new knowledge? For example, if we are going to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, I might ask students to share stories of when they saw a caterpillar or when they felt really hungry.  You will notice that when one student shares a story, they usually all do.  That should not irritate you.  When students are all wanting to share their prior knowledge, YOU GOT THEM!

Of course improving vocabulary skills, fluency, phonics and phonemic awareness are ALL pieces to the puzzle when it comes to comprehension.  Teaching reading can be complex with all the skills needed to be competent readers. Using the five strategies suggested is a great way to ensure students are comprehending what they read.

Narrative, History, Dream, Tell, Fairy Tales, Book

Here are some free reading passages with questions for you to enjoy.