On-Demand
Session
Empowering educators to joyfully fulfill their God-given calling
Fun Brain Break Ideas to Re-Energize Your Classroom
with Jennifer Leichty and Lori Adams of Christian Educators
Kids need to move! Movement energizes our brains and helps the learning process more than we might think. Join veteran PE teacher and Christian Educators member, Lori Adams, for this lively, fun-filled session exploring the many ways brain-break activities can enhance classroom culture and content connection.
Resources
Exclusive Deals, Speaker Books & Free Resources!
About Lori Adams
Lori Adams serves as Iowa State Director for Christian Educators as well as the Campus Coordinator for Iowa State University Fellowship of Christian Athletes. In this combined role, Lori seeks to come alongside people of sport and education to foster life-giving connection with Jesus and others. It is her purpose to encourage the Body of Christ to be the creative, joyful, unified, wise, and beautiful embodiment of Jesus in our communities.
She has served in this ministry partnership for the past 12 years, also teaching K-6 physical education at Ames Christian School. Lori has served in campus ministry at Iowa State since 1996 associating with Collegiate Presbyterian Church, Navigators, The Truth Project, L’Abri Fellowship, Reformed Campus Ministries, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Christian Educators Association International, Farm Girl Fellowship, WILMA (Women In Leadership in Ministry in Ames), and Tentmakers.
Lori played softball at Iowa State University, taught K-12 PE for 12 years in three public school districts, and also coached softball, volleyball, basketball, and track. Her work in FCA began in the fall of 1984 at Marshalltown High School.
About Jennifer Leichty
Hi! I am Jennifer Leichty. I began my teaching career at Mount Zion Christian School in Greenville, South Carolina, where I taught third grade. I then took a few years off from teaching and was a nanny for two young children. I returned to teaching at Melcher Dallas Community Schools. I taught third grade, kindergarten, and first grade while I was at Melcher Dallas. I then went to Ames Christian School and taught a 3rd /4th grade combination class and now I currently am teaching 4th grade at Ames Christian School. I love teaching and working with children.
I also teach piano lessons and love music. In my free time, I love being outside and going for walks. In the summer I enjoy running and doing a couple 5K races. I love spending time with my family and friends. My favorite place to vacation is the beach.
Connect with Christian Educators:
Upgrade to the
All-Access Pass
All sessions are free to watch the weekend of the summit (Oct 16-21).
But if you upgrade today to the all-access pass, you never lose access and can watch all 20+ sessions at your own pace - wherever & whenever you like.
Join the Conversation!
Share your biggest takeaway below!
20+ lucky commenters* will win exclusive prizes from our generous Rise Up speakers. New winners announced during each LIVE session. Be there to see if you've won & claim your prize. Click to view the schedule.
*Comments may be used as testimonials.
This was so fun!!! How can I get this done with Post High School Students??
Glad to have you on the brain break promo team, Rhapsody!
Such simple ideas that have the potential to change the dynamics of the class in a matter of seconds.
Thank you for the free resources.
Thank you. I love the ideas and cant wait to try them in class.
Me too. I hope they really help you have a great school year!
Beth, have fun!
If you are not joyful after just watching paper plate dance, then you need to get up and do it! Thanks for the great ideas and smiles. It is so encouraging just to see people who love their jobs and love their kids enough to pay attention to these small details that make a big difference.
Stephani, that’s so true that when we love people, we pay attention to what they need.
These were great! My first graders will love Dinosaur and Kitten.
I liked the comment “light that brain” I use music and movement a lot in first grade. The pencil movement gave me a few ideas.
Your brain activity is active after movement breaks. After 20 min of sitting there is little activity
Yes, Carrie, let’s get the word out!
Lots of Joy from these brain breaks! Key takeaways: Brain breaks light up the activity in the brain, allowing for reduced stress, increased productivity, and improved focus and attention. Thank you for sharing these wonderful resources.
Such great brain break ideas. I cannot wait to try them in my classroom.
I Love the idea of the move of the week idea. I work at a small school and this would be easy to do across the school.
Jennifer, have fun coming up with those moves!
I usually do the same brain break activities. I’m excited to try new ones. For kindergarten, I’m thinking of the dinosaurs and kittens, doing their letters and numbers in the air, doing a move of the week, and paper plate dances. Thanks for the fun and new ideas to try!
I like the idea of doing the kittens and dinosaurs and allowing students to pick the different animals, too. I like the move of the week idea from the PE teacher. What a great idea! How awesome! Did not know about Happy Salmon. Will order that card set. I loved the paper plate dance!! How fun! I agree, Joy is sparked when we MOVE our bodies and brains. Thank you!
Excellent ideas for fun brain breaks. I never knew the importance of crossing the midline, which uses both sides of the brain.
I was intrigued by the idea that something as simple as crossing the midline can help our students throughout the day.
This is awesome and I can’t wait to use these in my classes!
I loved tjos session. So many great brain break ideas. The paper plate one at the end was awesome. I will defenitely do it in class.
Julie, go for those paper plates when you really want to celebrate something special. I call it a musical tribute…words just aren’t enough sometimes.
Great ideas! And some are nice and simple for getting a break without getting crazy. I often skip brain breaks as it can be challenging to get them back to their seats. So I’m excited to try some of the crossing body ones that keep them in their seats
Very cute, I love these short brain breaks! Any suggestions for a 6th grade ELA class that would still incorporate ELA and activity so the students can come back quickly and justify doing these short activities??
These are great ideas and good alternatives to the meditation that my school is wanting us to do for brain breaks.
This session was so fun. I learned about so many different brain breaks. As a Spanish teacher, now I am looking forward to translating some of these and using them in my classes. Thank you!
What fun! My mind is working on how to incorporate some of these into ELA topics such as Ancient Civilizations, Reformation and Renaissance. Thank you for getting my brain blasting with ideas!
I love these ideas! I have 120 minute ELA blocks with 5th graders, and it gets long for them. I’m looking forward to trying some of these out!
I got some great ideas for things to do in the classroom. Even though I teach college level, I can modify some of these activities to fit my students. I actually am going to buy the Chicken Flingers to use when we review vocabulary, my students love playing review games. I also feel some of these would help my grandson who has ADHD, I am going to share some of these brain breaks with my son and daughter-in-law to use with him.
Happy Salmon TRULY is a great game! :). I LOVE the kittens & dinosaurs activity. I loved how much I smiled during this session. Smiling during a PD session definitely = joy in the classroom. 🙂
I have a tight classroom with high school students, so I appreciated the range of options suggested for not even needing to move far:
* Crossing arms over each other, clasping hands, twisting toward stomach
* Pencil wiggle: between each finger & then non-dominant hand
* Balance pencil on head
* Hands from side to side (cross midline)
This is great! I’m always looking for some easy to learn chants or brain breaks that don’t take too much time. I especially like the pencil wiggles, the pretzel, the warm wind blows, and the hand on the nose and ear crossover. I remember learning the pretzel and hand and ear crossover when I was younger.
Fantastic examples of quick, fun brain breaks. I really enjoy the movement of the week and the Daily Blast! I plan to share this with my elementary teaching team!
This was such a practical session. I will be implementing some of these ideas tomorrow with my students!
Love Lori and Jennifer!!
thank you for the list of resources – so many benefits to the brain when you allow it to get a break!
Love the different ideas for quick brain breaks in the classroom. I look forward to trying them with my third graders!
Love the paper plates as a prop, and thank you for talking about the importance of crossing the midline! Great stuff!
Love these ideas for brain breaks as most of my brain breaks are Go Danny or something similar on YouTube, which help but also make things worse too. So these will be helpful!
I am thinking that these Brain Blasts would be especially useful when taking high stakes tests, such as the state test. It is also good to help students learn to recognize when they are tuned out. They can advocate for themselves. Good session. Thank you.
I love the warm wind blows and the switchfoot ideas. These would be easy to implement for short breaks.
This was so much fun!!! I had an administrator in Middle School when I was still teaching who broadcast brain breaks in the school throughout the day. We all learned the brain breaks during our Professional Learning sessions and it was awesome to have the whole school stop and break together. Thank you for the resource, it’s awesome
I loved getting new ideas to incorporate brain breaks in my class. It also reminded me of activities I haven’t used in a while
. I am going to add daily afternoon running.
So fun and simple–sometimes you need to PLAN for creativity! I’m going to use some of these ideas next week!
I love the pretzel, crossing the midline strategy! Thank you for the handout. I look forward to using these strategies with my students!
Great strategies I can incorporate into my small group instruction! I think just a few minutes of some of these before my intervention groups will help them. Thank you!!!
Showing the picture of the sitting and active brain sent a powerful message. I am thankful for the reminder to plan to engage my students physically during class. Anything to help move students in a positive direction is a plus! Thank you for sharing.
I’m trying gastocnemious and switch foot right now, Lori. Super fun, and invigorating, but the people around me at the Philadelphia airport are stariing at me and I think someone called security. 😉
Super fun activities. I would love to have been in your class.
Mike, you’re doing something right when people are staring at you!
Kids are more motivated when learning with movement.
Moving our bodies helps relieve stress. Preach!
The Daily Blast is a GREAT inspiration! Thank you.
This is such a valuable—and fun—session for every educator! If you’ve ever wondered about the real impact of brain breaks, this session will convince you of their importance. You’ll also come away energized and equipped with practical, ready-to-use ideas (see the handouts!) to bring brain breaks to life in your classroom.
I love that this topic was included in the summit! Several years ago I learned about the brain-body connection and have been passionate about it ever since…but still usually feel like I’m in the minority of teachers with it. I loved the bran scan images–really makes the point! Thanks for getting the word out!