Transcript A collection of movement breaks you can use in your classroom. All intended to give students a break from whatever they are doing. Ideas From: My Head Other people’s heads http://www.kellybear.com/TeacherArticles/TeacherTip69.html http://plays.about.com/od/improvgames/qt/dictionary.htm And to help them have some fun! Made by Mike.

A collection
of
movement
breaks you
can use in
your
classroom.
All intended
to give
students a
break from
whatever
they are
doing.
Ideas From:
My Head
Other people’s heads
http://www.kellybear.com/TeacherArticles/TeacherTip69.html
http://plays.about.com/od/improvgames/qt/dictionary.htm
And to help
them have
some fun!
Made by Mike Gershon –
[email protected]
Mirror Me
Zip Zap Boing
Image Envoys
Charades Mime
Multi-Tasking
Collecting
Shapes
Tennis Ball 2
Stand Crouch Sit
Simon Says
Stand Up Sit Down
Make A Train
The Sun Shines On
Shape Your Learning
Touch The Sky
General Stretching
Marching
Puppet On A String
Dance-Oke
Can You Help
Emotions
Chain Reaction
Tennis Ball 1
This is a Spoon
Mexican Wave
Dictionary
Swap Seats
Human Shape
Professions
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Turn your classroom into a giant mirror...
• Teacher stands or sits at the front of the class.
• Students stand or sit, following the teacher.
• Whatever the teacher does, the students must create
a mirror image.
• For example, if the teacher raises their right arm,
students will raise their left arm.
Extend by having a student take on the ‘lead’ role or by
increasing the speed and complexity of movements.
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The old game of ‘Simon Says’ except in this case it will
be ‘Teacher Says’ or ‘Student Says’.
• Whoever is to lead comes to the front of the class.
• They perform actions prefaced by the statement
‘Simon says...’
• The class have to copy/play out the actions stated.
• The leader tries to knock students out by stating an
action without the preface ‘Simon says...’
• Anyone who does the action at that point is out!
• Continue until there is a winner.
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A great movement break for encouraging cooperation
and generating excitement.
• All students stand up.
• The aim is for all students to sit back down, having
called out numbers from 1 – X(however many in the
class) in order.
• Students are not allowed to communicate.
• The first student to sit down must say ‘1’, the second
‘2’ and so on.
• If any students say numbers at the same time,
everyone has to stand up and start again.
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Zip Zap Boing is a game of fast gestures and quick
thinking.
• Students stand in a circle.
• There are three commands: Zip, Zap and Boing.
• Zip: Students indicate left or right with their hands
and say ‘zip’.
• Zap: Students point across the circle with their hands
and say ‘zap’.
• Boing: Students face the person who has zipped or
zapped them, put up their arms and say ‘boing’.
• The ‘energy’ is passed around the circle using the
commands. Anyone who is too slow, mixes up the
gestures and commands or gets it wrong is out. Play on
until a winner is found.
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Recreate the locomotive journeys of yesteryear.
• Students stand up.
• The front row of students lead off, forming a
train.
• The rest of the students join on until the whole
class is a full train.
• The train moves around the classroom making
train noises or performing train like actions. This
could be supplemented by a narrative from the
teacher in which different events occur that the
train members respond to.
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Shine the sun on some different features.
• Students sit in a circle.
• The teacher calls out ‘The sun shines on...’ and
then chooses a feature:
e.g.
Anyone who watched the X Factor last night
Anyone wearing brown shoes
Anyone with a ponytail
• Students who this applies to must stand up and
change places.
• Extend by getting students to lead.
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A bit like charades, but with a twist...
• Students are put in groups.
• One member of each group comes to see the
teacher, who shows them an image.
• The students return to their groups and mime
the image.
• The first group to guess correctly wins a point.
• Extend by getting students to bring in images,
perhaps of an increasingly difficult-to-mime
nature.
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Turn your students into human Plasticine
• Students are asked to turn themselves into a
shape which matches or demonstrates their
learning.
• Extend by splitting the class in half. One half are
to shape their learning whilst the other half walk
round the ‘gallery’ trying to work out what each
shape represents.
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A very simple movement break.
• Students stand up.
• Led by the teacher they try to touch the sky by
stretching up as far as possible.
• This could be accompanied by a rousing
narrative/enthusiastic encouragement given by
the teacher.
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A familiar party game brought into the classroom.
• Students are either put in groups or play as a
whole class.
• The teacher provides words, phrases, book titles
etc.
• These are shown secretly to the performing
student(s).
• In silence the student(s) must perform the clue
whilst their peers try and guess what it is.
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As if you were warming up for a race...
• Students stand up.
• Teacher or student leads the class in a series of
warm-up style stretches.
• These could include –
Arm circles
Toe touching
Hopping
Jumping
Standing on one leg
Arms out forwards
And so on.
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A martial activity.
• Students stand up.
• Either in groups, teams or individually the
students march on the spot keeping to the rhythm
set by the teacher.
• Mix up with instructions such as Left Turn, Right
Turn etc.
• Combine with recitation of alphabet/key
words/multiplication tables etc.
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A classic, simple movement activity.
• Students are asked to do two things at once. For
example...
Pat their head and rub their stomach.
Snap their fingers and nod their heads.
Clap their hands and stomp their feet.
Extend by asking students to come up with their
own multitasking challenges.
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This helps build students’ trust of one another.
• Students get into pairs.
• They stand one behind the other.
• The front person is the puppet.
• The back person gives instructions which the first
person follows. This could be supplemented by
hand movements as if they were ‘pulling the
strings’.
• Students swap over and go again.
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Like karaoke but with dancing.
• Use a video or music track with a familiar or easy
to copy dance routine.
• Students stand up and follow the routine.
Extend by introducing more complex routines or
striving to perfect the first one chosen.
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Helps students to find out about one another.
• Place a list of statements on the board like:
Someone who supports Arsenal.
Someone who has two middle names.
A person who has been to America.
• Students must then move around the room and
find someone in the class who fits each statement.
Extend by creating a bingo style sheet for students
to fill in.
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A great way to turn students into teachers.
• Each student comes up with a question they
would like answered which links to the topic.
• Students stand up and move around the room,
asking people their question.
• Students compare the answers they receive.
• If they are finished, students seek out questions
to answer, or come up with another one to ask.
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A very emotional activity.
• Students can be stood up or sat down.
• Teacher or student chooses an emotion.
• The whole class display that emotion on their
face, exaggerating for effect.
• Students turn and look at one another.
• Another emotion is chosen and the pattern
repeated.
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Could lead to confusion and some interesting
developments.
• Students stand up.
• The teacher either calls out a shape or object, or
displays one on the board.
• Students must then try to recreate the
shape/object using their body or, perhaps, in pairs.
• Shapes or objects could include anything!
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An activity that might require some practice in
order to get it perfect.
• All students stand up.
• An action is agreed upon, for example a ‘thumbs
up’ or a ‘high five’.
• The first student does the action, setting off a
chain reaction in which every subsequent student
repeats the action in turn.
Extend by changing the start point or having two
simultaneous actions going round.
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Quick reactions and quick thinking again with this
activity.
• Students stand or sit.
• The teacher starts with a tennis ball.
• They ask a question and throw it to a student.
• That student must answer the question to earn
the right to pose one of their own.
• Having earned the right, the student poses a
question and throws the ball to someone else.
• And so on...
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More tennis related activity...
• Students sit or stand.
• Teacher starts with the tennis ball.
• They announce a topic, for example food, for
which each member of the class must be prepared
to state their favourite variety.
• The ball is thrown around. Each student
announces their favourite. The activity continues
until everyone has taken part.
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Students must act like spies in this game of
distance.
• Students stand up, preferably in a reasonably
large, clear space.
• Every student must secretly choose another
student who they have to follow, whilst keeping at
least one person in between them.
• The game begins: students try to surreptitiously
follow their chosen peer, all the time keeping
another person between the two of them.
Extend by only having half the students as
followers or half as detectives.
Madcap fun with pens disguised as cutlery.
• Stand in a circle.
• One person is the ‘knower’. They have two pens
and decide which one is the spoon and which one
is the knife.
• They begin by passing the spoon to their left and
the knife to their right and stating: ‘This is a
spoon/knife.’
• The first person to receive asks ‘A what?’ The
knower responds – ‘A spoon/knife’.
• Every movement on requires the spoon/knife to
then return to the knower who again indicates
what it is, their peers subsequently passing it back
and relating the information to the next person
along.
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Akin to being at a major sporting event.
• Students are sat down.
• At a signal the first student stands up, throwing
their arms in the air.
• The next student follows on immediately after.
• This is repeated through the whole class.
Extend by getting faster or starting multiple waves
at different points.
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An AFL movement break.
• Begin with all students sat down.
• The teacher refers to the learning in some way.
• If students feel confident with the learning they
stand, if OK they crouch/hover between sitting
and standing, if not sure they stay sat down.
• This can then be used to allow peer teaching.
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An improvisation activity.
• Students can be sat down or stood up.
• Teacher or student selects a page in the
dictionary.
• A word is picked from that page.
• Students then improvise around that word,
creating a short piece that in some way includes it
(either in groups or individually).
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Depends how important your seating
plan is.
• Half the class stand up.
• They must now swap seats!
Extend by asking pairs to swap together
or setting rules, e.g. You must move at
least one space vertical and two spaces
horizontal.
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Make a giant shape.
• Students stand up.
• The teacher brings a shape up on the board.
• Either groups or the whole class must recreate
the shape.
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A bit like work experience.
• Students stand up.
• The teacher or a student chooses a profession.
• All students must act as if they are a member of
that profession.
• Actions/behaviours could be exaggerated for
comic effect.