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Posts about Brain breaks written by La Maestra Loca

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Teaching Spanish w/ Comprehensible Input: CopyCAT: My New Favorite Brain Break

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Teaching Spanish w/ Comprehensible Input: CopyCAT: My New Favorite Brain Break

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Last week I discovered a new brain break by accident and it has quickly become my favorite brain break. I like it because it gets EVERYONE moving, multiple times, and the students have an opportunity to take ownership in the brain break by adding their own personal touch to it. This brain break is so simple and quick that you'll wonder why you didn't think of it before. (
*)
CopyCAT
(My name for it.)
1. All students and teacher stand up.

2. Teacher decides on which order the students will participate and informs students of the order. The purpose for choosing an order is so the activity moves smoothly, which makes it more fun.
(In my class, there are two semi-circles so I started with the student in the back semi-circle on the left hand side of my class and the students went in order until the end of that semi-circle and then the student in the front semi-circle on the right hand side of the class continued, so it made a complete "circle".)
3. The first person does an action and then the entire class repeats it in unison. The next person does an action and the rest of the class repeats it in unison. The third person does an action and the rest of the class repeats it in unison.
etc.
That's it - easy, peasy. It will take no more than 2 minutes; probably less than 1 minute, but it will energize the kids and give their brains a break.

Examples: - - - - - - And..check
- clap your hands 2x
- snap fingers 1x, clap hands 1x, snap fingers 1x
- jump 2x
- spin in a circle
- make a popping noise with mouth
- pat legs with hand 2x; snap 2x
- the genie nod
- clap hands 1x over your head
- cross arms and tap shoulders 2x
basically any motion that the students think of
If I remember, I'll ask one of my classes if I can videotape it and then add the clip here.

What I DID find, are many posts from World Language teachers about brain breaks from the last four years. Obviously, many teachers have discovered the benefits of brain breaks, for the students AND for the teacher, and want to share their experiences with others.

*As far as I know, this idea is not one that I heard from someone or read on a blog; it simply came to me right at the moment that I told students to stand up for a different brain break that I had planned (read about the original brain break plan at the end of the post) . When the idea came to me, I dropped my original plan and went with it. Before I wrote this post, I searched to see if maybe I had read it online and that's why the idea came to me but I did not find it anywhere.

For loads of FREE brain breaks activities, click on the links below. (I noticed that there are some vendors on TPT that are selling brain break materials, but seriously, the bloggers listed below are freely sharing lists of brain break activities which means you can spend your money on other materials needed for the classroom.) An OWL Adventure - Nonverbal Activities (August 2014)
Martina Bex - 20 Brain Breaks (August 2014)
Maris Hawkins - 12 Brain Breaks (August 2015)
My planned brain break that was replaced by the CopyCAT, is also fun for the students, but it requires a little more coordination. For this brain break, I do not know if this one has a name either, I started with a simple beat - clap 3 times and pause for 1 beat. Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell - Musicuetos - 7 Brain Breaks (October 2015)
clap - clap - clap - rest Secondary Spanish Space - 10, 5-Minute Brain Breaks (January 2017)
Then I called a students' name and that student had to add a new sound/action to the existing rhythm. La Maestra Loca - MANY posts on Brain Breaks (August 2016 thru Sept 2017)
clap - clap - clap - chi (sound that fell on the 4th beat) Mis Clases Locas blog for links to some additional Brain Break posts that may not be included in the above list.
Continue to call on other students to add sounds/actions to the current rhythm. My original planned brain break:
Before calling on new students, give everyone a chance to fall into the rhythm with the new addition.
It can get tricky and challenging. My classes made it to 4 or 5 new additions before we started losing students, or me, because it required more concentration. Why not give it a try?

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Last week I discovered a new brain break by accident and it has quickly become my favorite brain break. I like it because it gets EVERYONE moving, multiple times, and the students have an opportunity to take ownership in the brain break by adding their own personal touch to it.

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Quick Classroom Exercises to Combat Stress | Edutopia

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Quick Classroom Exercises to Combat Stress | Edutopia

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The trauma and adversity that students are carrying into classrooms are changing how educators need to address learning and academic performance. Fifty-one percent of children in public schools live in low-income households, and when poverty levels exceed 50 percent, there's a significant drop in academic performance across all grade levels. At the same time, 25 percent of all adolescents -including 30 percent of adolescent girls-are experiencing anxiety disorders.

Adversity and trauma reside in our biology, not our psychology and cognition, so we educators need to prime students' brains for learning. This calls for a deeper understanding of how our brains develop and how they respond to adversity and trauma, and how building relationships and providing strategies that promote emotional regulation can positively affect students' emotional, physiological, and cognitive health.

I'd like to describe some practices that not only address the stress response in the limbic brain areas, but also attend to sensory and motor systems in the brain stem area. Often these systems are compromised because of chronic stress that has neurobiologically reprogrammed how the brain of a child or adolescent responds to adversity.

Brain Breaks

Brain breaks stimulate many areas in the brain that pay attention to novelty and curiosity, sparking the motor and sensory systems while initiating emotional regulation in the more reactive and primitive areas of the brain. Here are a few brain breaks you can try in class.

Funny talk: Have students loosely touch the roof of their mouth with their tongue and begin to speak. Create a class chant to say altogether, or the teacher can address the class, modeling what he or she would like students to say.

Tongue stretch: Have students use clean hands or a Kleenex to stretch their tongue as far as it can go. This relaxes the throat, palate, upper neck, and brain stem. What could you add to this to make it funny?

Hum: There are many ways you can incorporate humming as a break or to begin class. Lead students in Simon Says or Name That Tune, or have them move their arms and legs to someone's humming. This activity releases stress and blockages in the brain stem.

Bilateral scribbles: Have students hold a different color marker in each hand and draw or scribble to the beat of some music for 30 seconds. When they're finished, see if the drawings turned into anything familiar or strange. Have them share with a classmate and then give their art a name.

Name scribbles: Have students write their favorite word four times with their dominant hand and then again with their other hand. Discuss how it felt, which they found more difficult and why, and what happened in their brains when they used their non-dominant hand.

Focused-Attention Practices

Focused-attention practices calm the brain's stress response and stimulate sustained attention and emotional regulation. A regulated and calm brain is a brain that is ready to deeply learn.

When we consciously use sensations, breath, movement, and our body's awareness, we activate those areas in the brain that pay attention to what is happening in this moment, while supporting areas we need for learning, attention, and engagement. I'll share four focused-attention practices here.

Ice cube: Give each student an ice cube and a paper towel or napkin to hold. As they hold the ice cube, ask them to focus on what it feels like in their hands and what the sensation reminds them of. Can they sit still and wait for the ice cube to melt?

Deep breathing: Have students scrunch their toes and cross their legs at the ankles. Then they should cross the left arm over the right arm, clasp their hands together, and-keeping their hands clasped-bring them toward their chest. Have them hold that pose for 30 seconds as they take five deep breaths, and then have them take another 30 seconds to uncurl their toes, uncross their legs, extend and unclasp their hands, and uncross their arms while taking another five deep breaths. How did that feel?

So what? As students close their eyes and sit up nice and tall in their chairs, they should visualize a golden thread that connects their hearts to their stomachs. As they breathe in, have them picture a pulse in the thread moving from their stomachs to their hearts; with each exhale, the pulse travels from the heart back down to the stomach. As the students breathe, have them say, "So what?" to themselves if a negative thought occurs.

Feeling phrases: To begin the day, have students share through a picture or description how their bodies feel. Some example phrases: cold/warm/hot; twitchy/butterflies/soft/stuck; sharp/dull/itchy; shaky/trembly/tingly; jittery/weak; empty/full; relaxed/calm/peaceful; flowing/spreading; strong/tight/tense; dizzy/fuzzy/blurry; numb/prickly/jumpy/tearful/goosebumpy.

Sensations are different than emotions in that they describe the way the body feels physically. Children who struggle with speaking can point to places on their body that hold a sensation. Sensory awareness promotes cognitive growth and self-awareness. When students can begin to identify their sensations, they begin to tap into where the negative feelings and images are. This focused-attention practice can be implemented several times a day after different experiences. Questions to ask as part of this practice:

What are you sensing? As the teacher, begin by sharing and modeling your own sensations.

Where is this in your body?

What might be the reason for these butterflies?

Can you draw what fuzzy, tingly, tight, etc. looks like?

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Quick Classroom Exercises to Combat Stress

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The trauma and adversity that students are carrying into classrooms are changing how educators need to address learning and academic performance. Fifty-one percent of children in public schools live in low-income households, and when poverty levels exceed 50 percent, there's a significant drop in academic performance across all grade levels.

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Brain Unbreaks (Express Fluency reflection 3) - Indwelling Language

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Brain Unbreaks (Express Fluency reflection 3) - Indwelling Language

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This is the third in a series of reflections and elaborations on Express Fluency 2017. If you haven't yet, check out installment 1, on the skills of slowness and silence, and installment 2, on making lemonade, i.e., capitalizing on would-be problems in class.
I usually use brain breaks just to get the blood pumping if it's been a little while or to help students unfill. But sometimes I like to extend them in order to recap recent info or sneak in some extra language that I know students can handle because of the change of setting or pace. I just decided to call these times Brain Unbreaks. Here are two recent examples from Express Fluency 2017.

Paper Drop Plus

I first participated in paper drop at iFLT 2016 with Faith Laux, who, I think, said she got it from Diana Noonan. The teacher lets a piece of paper fall from way up high (I usually stand on a chair); students stand and clap as many times as they can before the paper touches the floor. You can use L1 or TL to quickly find out who clapped the most times. Then applaud the winner with that number of claps!

When I teach Latin, I often Unbreak this brain break and spend a decent amount of time figuring out and going over the results. This is partly because, instead of a verbatim equivalent of four times, five times, six times, etc., Latin uses a whole different word for the number itself-kind of like once and twice in English, but for every number. Learners get a ton of encounters with these numerals, as well as other phrases, such as ____ or more and sit down unless ____, while we compare clappy results.

Sometimes we also discuss people's predictions and reactions about their own and their classmates' clappy performance: [before] Who do you think will clap the most times? How sure are you? Inna thinks she can clap faster than you-how does that make you feel? [after] Are you surprised to see these three finalists? Who did you think was going to clap the most times? If you could win a major prize for speed clapping, what would you want it to be? Similar questions work for most competitive brain breaks, such as the many variations of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

One time I knew students were about to read a story whose major theme was whether people got what they deserved. We happened to do the paper drop brain break, so I asked them a bunch of questions about whether they thought the winner deserved a prize, what kind of prize it should be, and whether X, Y, and Z were suitable prizes, setting them up to understand the relevant language in the story about just rewards and being worthy of honor or punishment.

This is a simple and specific example, but I hope it illustrates some ways in which unbreaking a brain break with a few extra questions can get you a lot of mileage!

Continuum

Continuum is a tried and true brain break in which students spread out along an imaginary line that runs the full length or diagonal of the classroom, according to their opinion or preference on some question. For instance, people who LOOOOVE kale would go to one end, people who HAAAATE kale would go to the other, and the rest would spread out in between according to their preference or indifference (although I'm told it's usually all or nothing with kale). Continuum gets students moving and gives students and teacher an overview of people's opinions, and it's always to interesting to see how the class is distributed.

You can continue Continuum by discussing the results right there while students are spread out. I've noticed that Continuum extends students' eagerness to keep talking about basically the same thing, partly because of the new physical layout and partly because it often reveals interesting nuances about what might otherwise be treated as a binary question. At Express Fluency, two different classes spread out according to how much they liked to dance and how badly they wanted to visit Greece, respectively. In each case, we had already spent a few hours on interactions about what students were good at and what places students wanted to visit, and I meant for Continuum to double as a brain break and a bookend for those conversations. But the distribution of participants in each class (a) revealed things about students we hadn't talked about as much and (b) made for interesting conversation because of the way some students were clustered. Among other things, this gave us a natural way to compare the degrees to which different people were into or averse to dancing and Greece.

You can do the same thing to unbreak Six Spots (#3 here) and the classic Four Corners.

Unbreaking it down

Keep using brain breaks for their main and crucial purpose of relaxing students' minds and bodies. But, when your students seem up for it, look for ways to get a little extra TL interaction-sometimes even substantial interaction-out of the activities you normally use as brain breaks, especially by asking questions.

A little bonus brain break

I'm typing this in Madrid, where I just wrapped up seven days of teaching a series of (24!) classes and workshops for teachers, mostly from Europe. In one of the sessions we learned that a student was an experienced ocean swimmer, while another was a surfer, another was interested in swimming just below the surface, and one wanted to try going for a walk on top of the waves. When brain break time came, I had the students move around the classroom first air-swimming like A, then swimming as though below the surface like B, then walking as though on waves like C, then surfing like D, switching when I hollered out instructions in the TL. This was even merrier than I had expected. Assuming you spend at least some time talking about what students like to do, you might try this kind of roaming TPR in which students imitate actions they've just learned others like or are good at.

Have fun!

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Brain Unbreaks (Express Fluency reflection 3) - Indwelling Language

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This is the third in a series of reflections and elaborations on Express Fluency 2017. If you haven't yet, check out installment 1, on the skills of slowness and silence, and installment 2, on making lemonade, i.e., capitalizing on would-be problems in class.

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Brain Breaks in the Target Language – Maris Hawkins

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Brain Breaks in the Target Language – Maris Hawkins

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As I have been reflecting on my class this summer, I decided that I want to use more brain breaks when school starts. However, I would like them to be in the target language. I wanted to come up ...

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Brain Break Ideas

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So I had the pleasure of attending AP training when I began teaching AP Spanish 6 years ago. I absolutely loved getting to talk to other language teachers, and see how they ran their classrooms.

One very common practice was...AP Summer Homework. I remember saying, "Wait...we need to give AP Summer Homework?" I remember every head turning to look at me in awe; as if...did this chick just say that?

One really sweet gentleman spoke up and said, "This test is incredibly hard. We need to make sure our students continue learning and don't lose any grammar, vocabulary, idiomatic phrases, and more. Summer homework really pushes the kids to keep going."

So...after the training I went home and started preparing my first AP summer homework packet..hmm...

Ok, honestly....the very first year that I prepared the AP summer homework packet, it was awful. Horrible. Pointless.

To be honest, I really didn't understand what the students should be doing in the summer. I didn't understand the three modes of communication: interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational.

But...

Four years later, I finally figured out summer homework that actually increased my students ability to be conversational speakers and to grow their skills.

I learned how to give assignments that reflected listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

When I prepared this final homework bundle, I handed it out to my students and waited for their reaction. Believe it or not...I was shocked. They were actually kind of "excited" to start on the homework.

So this is my secret: if you want your students to be enthusiastic and open minded about summer homework, you must make all the tasks "doable"

There is a very fine line of being challenged and being overly challenge to where you feel defeated.

In the past, it took it too far. I was assigning actual AP work but yet my kids hadn't had a day of the AP Spanish class. They didn't know the trick, the patterns, or even a grasp on the various grammatical concepts.

I can finally say that I have summer homework that I am extremely proud of, and can see SUCCESS for the past couple years.

It took a lot of research and work to prepare, but I can tell when my students return their skills are still intact.

They still remember the conditional, future, present, etc. They still know the difference between imperfect & preterite. Their listening skills are strong, and basic conversation has not been lost.

So my final thoughts are... don't be scared to assign summer homework. Start small and build on a full bundle that you are proud of.

Think...will my assignments help my kids conquer AP or are the kids doing busy work? My first few years it was pure busy work, and on top of that, it was freaking hard busy work.

Here are some basic benefits of assigning summer homework:
1. Continuation of practicing skills
2. Sets the tone that the class is rigorous.
3. Can weed out kids that don't want to take it seriously.
4. Forces the kids to make Spanish apart of their life.
5. On the road to fluency.

I have included a link to my Summer Homework for AP Spanish below if you would like to just buy mine:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/AP-Spanish-Summer-Homework-3177110

Let me know if you all have any questions about summer homework. I'm glad to answer as well as engage in any conversation about AP Summer Homework.

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So I had the pleasure of attending AP training when I began teaching AP Spanish 6 years ago. I absolutely loved getting to talk to other language teachers, and see how they ran their classrooms. One very common practice was...AP Summer Homework. I remember saying, "Wait...we need to give AP Summer Homework?"