Education

17 Brain Breaks Tailored for High Schoolers

• Shubham
• 03 September 2023
• 10 Comments

Kids, like adults, cycle through periods of attention and inattention—though the duration of the interval changes with age, and is variable across individuals. By high school, according to neurologist and classroom teacher Judy Willis, concentrated study of “20 to 30 minutes for middle and high school students calls for a three- to five-minute break.” Regardless of attention spans, brain breaks can prevent older students from feeling overwhelmed, and provide space for reflection, joy, and connection during a packed school day. They’re also a crucial part of the learning process. "According to one popular school of thought, it’s the active, repeated manipulation of material that lays the neural foundations for skill development," writes Youki Terada, Edutopia’s research editor. But breaks are often misconstrued as a pause in the active learning process, instead of “the period when our brains compress and consolidate memories of what we just practiced,” neuroscientist Leonardo Cohen and his team explain in a June 2021 study. In fact, Cohen continues, incorporating breaks into learning “plays just as important a role as practice in learning a new skill.” Brain “breaks” can take many different forms inside of the classroom, depending on the aim. To boost students' mood, Willis suggests activities that increase restorative neurotransmitters like dopamine: anything that involves “laughing, moving, listening to music, and interacting with peers.” Likewise, brain breaks that incorporate physical activity not only provide a moment of stress relief for students, but also increase the blood flow and oxygen supply to the brain—stimulating brain activity and helping students regain focus in the face of fatigue. 1. Thinking Outside the Box: On the board, provide students with the start of a doodle that they’ll have to creatively transform into something unexpected. This can be anything from two lines to a squiggle or a half circle. To add in some student voice and choice, have volunteers suggest what the initial drawing prompt should look like. Sourced from: Tina Centineo via Twitter 2. “Train Your Brain”: A fun activity that starts by having students touch the tip of their nose with their right index finger, and touch their ear with their left hand index finger. Then have them switch the position of their hands, touching the tip of their nose with their left hand index finger and moving their right index finger to touch their ear. Kids should keep doing this until they can get it right, which may take only a few tries for some and much longer for others. To add an element of competition, see which student can do this activity for the longest without messing up. 3. Would You Rather: Pair students up and have them discuss fun “would you rather” questions. Some examples of prompts include: Would you rather live in a world with no technology or a world with no nature? Would you rather have the ability to speak with animals or speak all human languages fluently? Would you rather have your favorite movie character as your best friend or your favorite book character as your sibling? To add an element of movement, do this activity together as a class. Announce the prompt out loud, and have students go to one side of the room or the other to show which option they’d rather choose. A select couple of volunteers can raise their hands to explain their reasoning. Sourced from: Education World 4. Rest and Reflect: Try turning off the classroom lights, setting a timer for 3-5 minutes and playing some soft, calming background music. Students can close their eyes and breathe deeply while they briefly pause and allow their minds to clear, processing what they’ve just learned and preparing themselves for the next portion of class. Sourced from: WeAreTeachers 5. Snowball Toss: This is a quick strategy to help students decompress and normalize productive conversations about stress and mental health. Have each student write down something they are stressed about on a piece of paper, which they will then crumple up into a ball. Once you give the cue, all of the kids will throw their paper across the room in a mock snowball fight. Lastly, kids pick up another snowball near them and read about something their classmates may be struggling with. Giving students the option to abstain ensures everyone has agency and control in what they share or whether they share at all. Sourced from: Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men -- Englewood Campus 6. Fold and Fly: Dedicate a few minutes to a paper airplane challenge. After breaking students up into small groups, instruct each group to create one paper airplane that they will enter into a competition. Provide no instructions or templates so students have to think on their feet and improvise. Each group of kids will have to put their heads together to construct the best airplane, testing and refining their techniques until they find the ideal design. Next, each group will compete to see which airplane flies the farthest from one side of the room to the other. Sourced from: Student Centered World 7. Jigsaw Jumble: Looking for a brain break that will have your classroom completely silent for several minutes? Try providing small groups of students with a handful of puzzle pieces. The group must work to put the pieces together using only nonverbal communication. No talking allowed! Sourced from: Student Centered World 8. Keep It Up: After blowing up a balloon, have students stand in a circle together and hold hands. When everyone is in position, toss the balloon up into the air and as a group students will have to keep the balloon in the air using anything but their hands—including their heads, feet, shoulders, and elbows. You could also try breaking the class into teams and seeing which group can keep the balloon in the air for the longest time. Sourced from: Twitter 9. What is That?: Find a picture of something your class may never encounter in your subject area and display it for students to see. “I showed a physics class a murmuration of starlings but did not tell them what it was,” explains former principal Peter Embleton. “No phones or computers, they had to figure out what was happening and why.” This not only ignites student curiosity but may introduce your class to something they didn’t previously know existed. Sourced from: Peter Embleton via Twitter 10. Rock, Paper, Scissors: Transform the classic game of rock, paper, scissors into a brief class tournament. Start by pairing students up; the winners of that first round will then move on to compete against another winner in the classroom, while the losers of the round sit back down in their seats. Winning students continue to compete until one final student is left standing. Sourced from: Barre Unified Union School District 11. 1, 2, 3, Math!: Similar to rock, paper, scissors, students will play against each other in pairs. After the players say “1, 2, 3, Math,” each will display one, two, three, or four fingers in the palm of their hand. The first of the pair to correctly call out the sum of both players’ fingers wins that round and a point. The first person to win three rounds is the champ. Sourced from: Lori Desautels 12. Cup-Stacking Challenge: Break students into small groups and provide each group with three cups and two index cards. Each group will stack these items in the following order until they create a vertical tower: cup on the bottom, index card, cup in the middle, index card, cup on top. The aim is to quickly pull the index cards out so the cups fall into each other in a clean stack. Using a timer, see how quickly the whole class can complete the task. You can even have different classes compete against each other for the fastest time.