13 Brain Breaks

Brain Breaks

13 little brain break ideas to help your kids with the wiggles.  

Nose/ear exercise: grab your nose with left hand and grab your left earlobe with your right hand.  Quickly switch so that your right hand is on your nose and your left hand is on your right earlobe.  Do this 10 times quickly. 

Pretzel Breathing: Standing up, cross your ankles. Now cross your right wrist over left, turn your hands so your thumbs are facing the floor, put palms together and interlace fingers. Bend your elbows out and gently tum your hands down and toward your body until they rest on the center of your chest. Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Relax and breathe.

Color filling: Pick a color that makes you feel calm, safe and peaceful.  Imagine you are surrounded by this color.  Describe what you feel.  Try and rub your belly with your right hand while patting the top of your head with your left hand and then switch.  Do 10 times

Cooking Chef: Pick your favorite food.  Pretend you are the chef cooking it.  Act out how you cook your favorite food step by step as if you were doing your own cooking show.

Head Shoulders Knees and Toes: Touch your head, then your shoulders, then your knees and then your toes.  Start out slow and see how fast you can go.  Do this 10x

Cross Walk: Start with your right foot out and left arm out as you walk forward, alternate left arm out with right foot out, right arm out with left foot out.  Walk around the room for a few minutes.

Jumping Jacks: do 10 of these.

Stretch it Out:  Stand with your feet shoulder-distance apart. Put your left hand on your hip and raise your right hand overhead. Lean to the left and stretch your arm as far as you can to the left. Repeat on the right side. Then stand tall and slowly roll down one vertebrae at a time until your hands reach the floor (or at least their shins). Then take a deep breath then slowly roll back up.  10x

Just Jump: pretend you are bouncing on a mini-trampoline (Keep your movement on a vertical plane, you don’t want to fall off the mini trampoline.) jump up and down 50x

Stir the Pot: visualize you are standing in front of an enormous cauldron. Inside the cauldron is an ooey-gooey pot of caramel. Take hold of a large stirrer and plunge it to the bottom of the pot. Slowly begin to stir in a clockwise direction. Use your whole body to help get a full range of motion in your wrists and shoulders, add your hips.  Do for 1 min. then switch directions.

Make it Rain: conjure up a rainstorm! Sitting or standing at a desk or table, tap 1 finger on the desk, then 2, then 3, then 4, then their whole hand until you all feel like you’re in the middle of a deluge. Work your way backward from 5 down to 1 as the storm ebbs away.

Energized knees: Pretend you are energizing your knees and toes with a super powered charger.  Touch your left elbow to your right knee, then touch your right elbow to yourr left knee. Switch back and forth going slowly at first, building speed until you are going at a vigorous pace. Next, do some windmills by standing tall with your feet shoulder-width apart and your arms stretched out. Bend at the waist and touch their right hand to their left toes, then their left hand to their right toes. Switch back and forth.  March around for 2 min.

Partner Shuffle: Face a partner.  Clap your right hands together at the same time touch right toes together.  Now switch back and forth.  Try to do as quickly as you can, now try to do as slow as you can.