Brain Breaks

With all the intensive work that the children are doing in school at the moment it's only natural that they need a break, both physically and mentally.  Brain breaks, or brain gym is one of the ways that you can give the child the mental break.  Using this in school almost every lesson really helps the children to keep focused, and refocus themselves after a particulary intense period.  The problem is what can you do for a Brain Break?

My wife and I put together a small booklet which we called a Brain Break Menu a year or so ago with a number of different brain breaks.  Let the children choose which brain break they want to do after you have worked your way through it.  Let me know what their favourites are! 

EDIT: Due to popular demand here is the original brain break menu for Microsoft Publisher. You will need to unzip the file using Winzip or similar. You can alter the text yourself now! (Download brain_break.zip)

EDIT 2: Kath Crolla has kindly made a copy of this booklet for SMART Notebook.  You can download the file here. (Download SMART notebook brainbreaks menu )

Comments

[Matt]

Thanks for the personalised copy - it looks good ;)

[victoria]

could i get a personalised copy too, please?

i'd like to use some of these activities this half term.

[Kath]

I have made these into a Smart Notebook file for interactive whiteboard. If you would like it, how do I get it there?

[RossA]

Thanks Kath,

If you email them to me I'll put them up on the site for you.

Andrew

[Heather Hibbs]

Thank you so much for the brain breaks. They are great.

[Johno]

Is it possible to have a copy of the brain breaks on SMART notebook format as I don't have Publisher
Thanks

[RossA]

Hi Johno,

Sorry I don't have the software to convert it to SMART Notebook format. You can download the pdf version (5th line of the original post) which you should be able to view on any computer. If you don't have Adobe Reader you can download it for free from www.adobe.com

I've yet to receive the file from Kath - when she emails me I'll put it up for everyone here.

Hope this helps.

Andrew

[Kath Crolla]

Sorry I'm late getting this to you guys,; tried it out with my class and it was too small for them to see easily - so have edited accordingly.

[RossA]

Thanks - I'll put it up asap.

[Chris Barber]

Hi, the notebook file seems to be corrupted. It takes to a page of scrambled letters. How do i download it please?

[Andrew Ross]

Hi Chris,

You need to make sure that you have the latest version on SMART Notebook installed. I believe that this is version 9.5. You can download it from the SMART website. Details are here:

http://www.primary-teacher-uk.co.uk/2006/10/smart_resources.html

Andrew

[Susan]

Thanks very much. Very useful.

[Rachael]

I love the idea of this. Tried downloading and sadly I can't access it as it is a different version of publisher. Any ideas please?

[Andrew Ross]

Hi Rachel,

Let me know which version you would like it in and I'll try and convert it for you. Otherwise you can let me know (rossa@primary-teacher-uk.co.uk) your school name and surname and I'll make you a copy and email it to you as a PDF.

Andrew