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3 Minutes Body Scan Meditation - Mindfulness For Kids And Adults

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10 Classroom Mindfulness Activities for Students

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It can be very hard to calm a class full of children, especially when they're bored. But, what if we told you that we have a secret for that?

Mindfulness is the state of mind when you're being conscious or aware of something. It helps you calm down and have a better understanding of your thoughts and emotions. And mindfulness activities for the classroom are a perfect way to achieve it.

Mindfulness is an important exercise that children should be encouraged to apply. What better way is there to convince them to do so than games! 🙌

MentalUP is an educational gaming app that has 150+ games to support the mental development of children. It also features 240+ physical games to support children do their daily movements. 🧠🤸

The mindfulness games offer a fun area and practical way to help your children achieve mindfulness. There are also games that boost memory, enhance focus, and so much more! 🤩✨

Benefits of Teaching Mindfulness in the Classroom

Promoting mindfulness in the classroom is not only a way to calm the students as mindfulness education has many other benefits for them. Here are some of the benefits of mindfulness for children according to the APA (American Psychological Association):

Reduced overthinking

Reduced stress levels and anxiety

Working memory boost

Enhanced focus

Less emotional (more logical) reactivity

Functions as a childhood obesity prevention strategy

Calmness

Cognitive flexibility

Improved social relationships

Increased immune system

Improved well-being

Increased information processing speed

Decreased task effort

Empathy

Compassion

Raises awareness of emotions

Raises self-awareness

Reinforces intrapersonal intelligence

As you can see, mindfulness has many mental, psychological, social and physical benefits. Therefore, the importance of mindfulness for students can't be overstated.

We gathered the 10 best mindfulness activities for the classroom to be able to adapt mindfulness education to children's lives.

10 Classroom Mindfulness Activities

You can provide mindfulness in elementary education by including fun mindfulness class activities into the curriculum. We'll start with one of the most basic mindfulness practices for students breathing.

1. Shark Fin Breathing Exercise

You can start teaching mindfulness in the classroom with this easy exercise. It's also one of the fun mindfulness activities for kindergarten.

Benefits

Shark Fin breathing exercises are perfect for facilitating calmness quickly and spontaneously and for helping kids sort out their thoughts and feelings while relaxing the body. It helps focus on the "now". You can also use it as one of a great warm up games for kids before longer mindfulness activities for students.

Duration

This exercise will take 2 minutes at most. We told you it was quick.

How to Apply

1. Students can sit down on a chair, floor or comfortable surface, and close their eyes.

2. Tell them to place their thumb on their forehead with their other fingers pointing to the sky like a shark fin. Their palm should be looking towards their side.

3. They should take a deep breath and move their hand slowly down from their forehead to their chest, keeping the 5-S's in mind:

4. Breathe in and out a few more times.

5. They can open their eyes; encourage them to notice how they feel.

2. Mindful Breathing Colors Exercise

Mindful breathing colors exercise is one of the creative mindfulness techniques for the classroom.

Benefits

Children will calm down and let go of their unhealthy thoughts and feelings. It will also help kids manage stress and overcome anxiety.

Duration

This exercise will take 5 minutes.

How to Apply

1. Ask students to assign colors to their feelings. First, start with a relaxing positive color.

2. Then, ask them to think of a color that represents stress, sadness, or anger, or whichever of those emotions is most relevant or suitable for your students' age group etc.

3. Students start breathing. When they breathe in, they imagine inhaling the relaxing color and visualize it filling their lungs.

4. When they breathe out, they imagine exhaling the stress, sadness, or anger color out of their body.

3. Mindful Breathing Exercise

Mindful breathing exercises are another example of quick mindfulness activities for the classroom.

Benefits

Mindful breathing enables students to be present, improve their concentration and sort out their feelings.

Duration

This exercise is one of the 5 minute classroom mindfulness activities.

How to Apply

1. Students can choose either standing or sitting for this activity.

2. Ask students to put both their hands on their belly. If you want, you can give out small wooden blocks or similar items to place on their belly as well.

3. Students can close their eyes, stare at the ceiling or look down to their hands.

4. Guide students in taking three slow deep breaths in and out to see if they can feel their hands or the object on their belly moving with the air flowing through their bodies.

5. You may like to count for each breath. Count "one" when inhaling, "two" while exhaling. Count "three" with another breath in and "four" with the following breath out.

6. Complete counting after 5 minutes. You may want to set up a timer to keep track of time.

Encourage students to think about how the breath feels. It is important that they only focus on breathing and that their minds don't wander off during the exercise.

Mindfulness exercises help improve children's focus and attention span. However, there are other practices designed for the sole purpose of improving children's attention, focus, and concentration skills. MentalUP is one of them with its learning games and workouts for kids.

MentalUP is a pedagogically certified app that has 150+ games that, from improving concentration to boosting visual intelligence, all have their specific goals. You can create a plan based on the skills your children need improvement and easily track their progress.
Download the App
4. Mindful Body Scan Exercise

Such ideas for mindfulness in the classroom are perfect to practice in class because students can take them home. Better yet, ask them to teach their parents the mindfulness exercises they learn in class.

Benefits

Need a time out? Mindful body scans help children relax, focus on bodily sensations, and calm their minds. It is also one of the exercises that are perfect before bedtime.

Duration

This exercise takes about 10 minutes.

How to Apply

1. Students should lie on the floor, with their hands and arms placed slightly apart from their bodies. It is better if they close their eyes but it's okay if they prefer to look at the ceiling instead.

2. Encourage students to pay attention to their feet for 5 to 10 seconds.

3. Tell them to move their focus on to their toes, then ankles, then calves and knees. Continue focusing on each body part until you reach the head.

4. Ask your students how each part of the body feels to bring their awareness to their bodies and to the moment.

5. If they feel any tightness or stress, tell them to imagine breathing the stress out of that part of the body with each exhale.

You may ask questions like "How do your arms feel?", "Are your hands cold or warm?" to draw the students' attention to the body scan and amplify the benefits of mindfulness for children.

5. Mindful Eating Exercise

It's snack time! This is one of the mindfulness strategies for the classroom that helps us notice actually how mindlessly we do things. You will be able to teach them that it is better to savor and enjoy a bar of chocolate instead of gobbling it in less than a minute.

This exercise is best for 3rd graders and up. Be careful with foods that are choking hazards and beware of allergies.

Benefits

Mindful eating can combat overeating as it helps us realize how much and what exactly we eat. It allows focusing on the flavors and tastes of different foods and noticing what effects different foods have on how our bodies feel. It also builds the capacity for stillness and mindful focus.

Duration

Mindful eating exercises take about 5 minutes.

How to Apply

1. First, choose your food. A piece of candy or chocolate, a small fruit like grapes or strawberry, or a raisin will do. Be sure that none of your students are allergic to your choice of food.

2. Have the students put the food in their mouths. The key is that they can't chew it or swallow it.

3. Have them savor the flavor. Can they feel the aroma released in their mouths while they breathe?

4. For three minutes, students should focus on the candy melting in their mouths slowly or the raisin watering their mouths.

5. After 5 minutes is up, they can chew and swallow.

Mindfulness is about being present, so if their thoughts drift away, tell them to simply bring them back to the candy.

6. Mindful Walking Exercise

Ready to get out of the classroom? This activity is best completed outdoors and if suitable, students may walk barefoot to have a more intense experience. To ensure safety, give students a clear boundary for where they can walk during this exercise.

Benefits

These kinds of outdoor activities for kids, such as ​​mindful walks, help children sort out their feelings and thoughts while calming the mind. It also helps them reduce stress and anxiety. Try it with your elementary students.

Duration

A 10-minute walk will be enough for this mindfulness exercise.

How to Apply

1. Each student should select a small area where they can walk in a line for about 5 or 6 steps and back to where they started without interfering with others.

2. First, take three deep breaths, or apply Shark Fin exercise (#1 exercise in this list)

3. Tell your students to take 5 or 6 steps in one direction, then slowly turn to the opposite way, and finally take 5 or 6 steps back to where they started.

It will be more effective if the students focus on the following during the exercise:

What is the texture of the surface under their feet?

Which part of their foot touches the ground first when they take a step?

Does their body feel heavy or light?

How do they walk? Are they slouching or dragging their feet?

How is their posture? Are they standing straight?

How naturally does their body move?

You can also discover PE games to strengthen kids' mindfulness skills and bodies besides walking!

7. Mindful Hearing Exercise

There is a difference between hearing and listening, whereby hearing is just the bare perception of sound by the ear and listening is a conscious action of processing that stimulus. Thus, the lack of listening skills is one of the main reasons children can experience learning difficulties. Try mindful hearing, an exercise that helps develop listening skills. It teaches children to concentrate on what they hear and to start actively listening to it.

Later on, ask your students to apply this exercise to your voice and concentrate on what you say when they feel disconnected to the class. You can apply it to students of all ages.

Benefits

As mindful hearing will help calm the body, it will also help improve listening and concentration skills. It is also one of the quick mindfulness activities for the classroom and perfect for sudden anger, cry bursts, and other raging emotions.

Duration

This exercise will only take 2 minutes.

How to Apply

For this exercise, you will have to guide the students and you'll need something that makes a bell sound (you can easily find apps that provide a bell sound if you don't have one). Here are the instructions that you should give before ringing the bell:

Once I ring the bell, concentrate only on the sound that you hear.

Close your eyes. Try to notice if you hear the sound louder in one ear than you do in the other.

If you notice your thoughts are wandering, simply bring your attention back to the sound of the bell and tune out other noises.

Keep your eyes closed until the sound is completely gone.

After you open your eyes, remain silent until you hear my voice again.

Here is how the students should apply it:

1. Begin with three deep breaths.

2. The students should close their eyes when the teacher rings the bell.

3. The exercise is completed when the sound has completely faded.

8. Mindful Senses Exercise

This mindful exercise for the classroom is better for students in middle school and up. You can even apply it to college students or adults.

Benefits

It can be used to help calm a busy mind, reduce stress, and bring our awareness to the "now". It also helps improve concentration.

Duration

5 minutes for 5 senses.

How to Apply

This exercise is quite simple. All you have to do is close your eyes and think of (and focus on):

5 things you can see that you normally wouldn't care to see

4 things you can touch that you normally wouldn't care to touch

3 things you can hear that you normally wouldn't care to hear

2 things you can smell that you normally wouldn't care to smell

1 thing you can taste that you normally wouldn't care to taste

All things and activities require a certain amount of concentration and attention from us - from basic ones like noticing a blooming flower on your way to school or work, to more demanding ones like doing homework or attending a meeting at work. You or your children may be missing out on a lot of things if you have problems concentrating and paying attention.

MentalUP is an educational app with over 10+ million users worldwide. Children and adults can pick their age and areas that need improvement to form their personalized program.
Get Started Now
9. Mindful Gratitude Exercise

Expressing your gratitude for things is not only good for mindfulness, but it will also help children have a more positive attitude towards life. This activity is best for students who will be comfortable enough to write down things such as 4th graders and up.

Benefits

Writing down your gratitude for the day will help develop compassion, empathy and tolerance for others while giving a chance to reconsider your thoughts and actions throughout the day.

Duration

It will take about 5-10 minutes. It is important to do it every day and to assign a specific time for it. For example, it could be the first thing when the class starts, after lunch or a little before the end of the day.

How to Apply

1. Students can make a Gratitude Journal out of a notebook or a folder and paper.

2. Ask your students to take five minutes to think of something that they feel grateful for today. If your students can't come with any, here are some friendly reminders of things they can be grateful for:

An act of kindness that they received from someone that day.

A person in their lives that they appreciate.

An activity or hobby that they like to pursue.

A skill or ability they have.

A part of their body that they are grateful for.

An item that they love.

Something that happened that day that made them laugh.

10. Mindful Safari Exercise

There are so many beautiful things out there in nature that we just pass by without even noticing. Take your students out for a mini safari adventure where they will get to be a piece of it. And it's not only for the little ones! This exercise can also provide mindfulness for high school students as one of the most preferred co-curricular activities.

Benefits

This mindful safari which is among the most effective balance exercises for kids, will enable students to enjoy the present moment and appreciate other living beings around them. This way, they will inevitably arouse a feeling of calmness and relaxation.

Duration

It can take 10-30 minutes depending on the size of the area you're discovering and the interesting things the children encounter.

How to Apply

1. Ask the students to remain quiet, calm their thoughts, and move slowly while on safari.

2. Tell them to try to enhance their sense of sight, touch, and sound to be able to pay close attention to their surroundings.

3. Together, search for beautiful natural objects that you can explore. When you find one, ask your students to examine it while asking themselves questions like:

What does it look like?

What color is it?

What does it smell like?

Can I touch it?

What does it feel like?

4. Search for other residents and moving creatures of nature.

5. When they do find a moving creature, encourage them to quietly watch the creature and examine how it moves, the colors on it, and other details that identify it.

🎁 BONUS: If you're looking for more practices for students, check out our mind games! They will teach children patience, strategic thinking, and how to reduce stress and can help them improve their developmental skills. Also, kids can enjoy playing unblocked games for school by themselves safely.

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10 Classroom Mindfulness Activities for Students | MentalUP

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Are you looking for mindfulness class activities? These 10 mindfulness exercises for students are going to make teaching mindfulness in the classroom fun!

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5 Minute Energising Fun Kids Workout | The Body Coach TV

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Have you played Silent Ball? If so, you know why it's an awesome tool to have in your classroom-management toolbox. If not, listen up-we're about to change your life.

The directions for Silent Ball are simple. Use a squishy or soft ball and have students pass it around to one another. Students can stand in a circle, sit on the carpet, or even sit on the tops of their desks. There are only two things they have to remember: 1) They can't drop the ball and 2) they must stay silent.

If a student drops the ball, they're out of the game. Your class keeps playing until there is one student left standing (or sitting).

Even though the rules are simple, Silent Ball can promote some powerful lessons in your classroom. Here are five reasons why every class should play Silent Ball.

1. It teaches students how to stay silent.

The object of Silent Ball is to be silent, so it's the perfect game to play when you just need your class to have some quiet time. Students love this game so much that they're willing to stop talking just so they can play. A perfect time to get your students quiet is right before dismissal. Entice students by telling them you can play a round of Silent Ball before they go home, only if they can clean up and get packed up within a certain amount of time. You'll be pleasantly surprised when you see how quickly your students will move.

2. It supports fine motor skills.

You need to be quick and ready to catch the ball when you see it flying your way, especially when there's no verbal warning. Students need to use their hand-eye coordination, as well as their dexterity, to catch the ball without dropping it. Using a smaller ball can help students with their grip and reaction when catching the ball.

3. It creates a positive community.

Some rule variations when you are playing Silent Ball can involve students needing to pass the ball to students outside of their table arrangement or to students who they may not normally hang out with at recess. Creating these types of rules can encourage students to interact with others and build a positive relationship with new classmates.

4. It fosters friendly competition.

You can take this game to the next level by having students compete. Divide the class into two groups and see which group can keep the ball moving without dropping it (and in silence) the longest. Make sure students are in groups that help them build new and positive relationships.

5. It boosts nonverbal communication.

The best part of this game is seeing kids communicate with one another without using their voices. The head nods, over-exaggerated eye contact, and subtle arm movements show how committed students are to winning. It also proves that students can communicate using more than just their voices.

Silent Ball is one of those games that can be played at any time, anywhere. Play it during indoor recess, right before dismissal, or when you have a quick three minutes before transitioning to the next lesson. It's an easy brain break and can help give your students that mental reset they need to stay focused during their next task.

For more ideas for fun games your students should be playing now, check out these 30 old-school recess games.

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Is "Silent Ball" the Best Classroom Management Tool You Never Knew Existed?

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Every class needs to try playing Silent Ball. It can help teach students how to be quiet, while also helping to create a positive classroom culture.

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5 ANIMAL Breath Exercises Kids and Family Yoga

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Physical activity that amplifies learning can have a powerful effect on retention and engagement-it's also fun.

Allison Shelley for the Alliance for Excellent Education

When researchers at Texas A&M University gave standing desks to 34 high school students, they discovered that after consistent use, standing while learning delivered a significant boost to students' executive functioning skills-the sorts of cognitive skills that allow kids to manage their time, understand and memorize information, and organize thoughts in writing. Even small amounts of movement, this emerging research revealed, can deliver a positive impact on learning: Neurocognitive testing of the standing students, the pilot study notes, showed a 7 to 14 percent improvement in their cognitive performance, a noteworthy impact for such a simple intervention.

Infusing classrooms with physical activity-or at least the option of some movement, at student discretion-isn't just good for kids' bodies, it's also a powerful tool for improving learning and focus and reducing classroom management issues. And yet, from kindergarten through high school "students spend most of their academic lives at a desk," says educator Brad Johnson for The Washington Post, an arrangement that is meant to increase their focus and academic productivity, but can actually create kids who are "bored, off-task, disruptive or otherwise disengaged."

There are many smart, innovative ways to build movement into lessons and the research increasingly supports getting kids moving in schools to promote better physical health, provide the types of breaks that reset our cognitive processes so that we can learn anew, and even link our physical bodies to our cognitive insights to encode learning more deeply. From intentionally aligning curriculum with movement to improve retention, to planning frequent and active brain breaks to clear working memory, here are more than a dozen ways educators and researchers are pairing learning with movement.

INTEGRATING MOVEMENT IN THE CURRICULUM

Incorporating gross and fine motor activities across many subject areas makes a lot of sense, particularly to teach foundational concepts. In math classes, for instance, you can create chalk grids on the playground and have children walk sloped lines, stopping to discuss and walk the line's "rise" and "run," or you can use hand and arm gestures to teach a broader range of mathematical concepts like tangents and cosines. Here are a few more ways educators are injecting movement into lessons.

In Science, Becoming a Liquid: Science teacher and instructional coach JaShan Wilson turned social distancing requirements into an opportunity for her students to "use their own bodies to model movements, test phenomena, and engage with the curriculum."

For lessons on matter and particle movement, for example, she asks students to "act like solids, liquids, or gases," and then "switch it up as in Simon Says until all students sped up, slowed down, or vibrated in order to represent how matter moves." For a unit on energy, Wilson's students examine the transfer of energy by making wave movements with their arms. "The more energy they apply, the higher the amplitude," Wilson notes. Engaging students in these "human labs," as Wilson calls them, delivered impressive academic results: Her students did better on formative assessments and "continued to utilize the movements and reference the activities, which showed how they connected the concepts to them permanently."

Playing Basketball Math: In a six-week study involving 757 Copenhagen elementary school students, researchers had half the students do math while playing basketball. The other half studied math in class as usual, and played basketball solely as a regular gym activity.

The kids who played while doing math did tasks like "counting how many times they could sink a basket from three meters away versus at a one-meter distance," and then added up the numbers, says Linn Damsgaard, one of the study's authors. Among the students who played basketball while doing math, the researchers reported a 6 percent boost in math mastery; a 16 percent increase in intrinsic motivation; and a 14 percent improvement in "perceived autonomy," or self-determination, compared to peers learning in the classroom.

Student Thespians: When researchers asked 8-year-olds to mimic the words they were learning in another language by using their hands and bodies to act out the word's meaning-by spreading their arms and pretending to fly while they learned the German word for airplane, for example-the students were 73 percent more likely to recall them, even two months later.

In ELA and social study classes, having kids partake in skits may feel like it's inviting chaos, but the body will often remember what the mind forgets-and getting students to act out historical events or scenes from works of literature can help them remember the information, grasp the basic elements of drama, or provide them with a new opportunity to listen to the sounds and rhythms of written and spoken language.

Drawing It Out: Even indifferent or unpracticed artists benefit by drawing what they've learned, a 2018 study concluded, resulting in retention rates that were double the rates of when kids wrote or read.

When a student draws a concept, they "must elaborate on its meaning and semantic features," the researchers explain, while engaging "in the actual hand movements needed for drawing"-a rich mixture of cognitive and physiological activities that encodes learning more deeply and is a "reliable, replicable means of boosting performance."

The drawing doesn't have to be expert-level: even stick figures or crude shapes accompanied by annotations will do, and data visualizations work similarly to hand-drawn pictures. You can assess learning by allowing kids to try one-pagers that demonstrate their understanding of a topic through art; incorporate more graphs and statistical modeling into math and science classes; have students draw models of solar systems or cells in science classes; or let students create travel journals to document any learning journey graphically.

ACTIVE BRAIN BREAKS

Research shows that when students take brief, active breaks throughout the day, it increases productivity, creativity, and social skills. "When we take a brain break, it refreshes our thinking and helps us discover another solution to a problem or see a situation through a different lens," writes Lori Desautels, an assistant professor at the Butler University College of Education. "The brain break actually helps to incubate and process new information," says Desautels.

So plan for frequent breaks (we've included a few ideas to get you started) and keep them active and social-a brisk walk around the perimeter of the classroom, a quick stretch, an energizing freeze dance.

Brain breaks for younger students: Try wiggle breaks where kids stand and wiggle each arm and leg in succession or opposite sides, where kids blink one eye while snapping fingers on the opposite side and then reverse the exercise. For energizing breath, have students pant like dogs with their mouths open and tongues out for 30 seconds, hands on the belly, then breathe briskly for another 30 seconds with mouths closed. Easier still: invite kids to jump in place like they're on a trampoline; or keep it really simple with a quick crab walk around the room.

Brain breaks for older students: Try a wave, starting at one end of the room with students standing and raising their arms; or have them get out of their chairs for a whole-body stretch or for a brief walk around the room. They can also pass a ball around for a quick game of catch, practice a few yoga poses like tree pose or warrior II, or very simply, ask them to hop on one foot, then switch to the other foot for a minute or two.

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT MOVEMENT WHILE LEARNING

Doodling, Fidgeting, and More: There's often confusion about movement that is not directly related to learning. While drawing a plant cell or creating a pictorial representation of a scene from a novel will deepen retention and result in more durable learning, when students doodle during lessons-by drawing elaborate cartoons while an unrelated lesson is in progress, for example-the research, and the cognitive science, suggests that learning is compromised.

In a 2019 study during which students were asked to doodle-which the researchers defined as "drawing that is semantically unrelated to to-be-remembered information"-while they learned, they showed "poorer free recall for words encoded while free-form doodling compared to words that were drawn or written."

Multitasking divides our attention, a finite cognitive resource, and makes us less proficient at both tasks. But there's a wrinkle here, too: There is some evidence that activities that require very little attention, like fidgeting or listening to soft background music (but probably not loud or attention-gobbling music), don't divide our focus to the same degree. Being tolerant of a certain amount of fidgeting or a pair of headphones is an important accommodation for students who might otherwise need to get out of their seats entirely, or might struggle with focused, demanding tasks like homework. In the end, the more distracting any task is to the lesson, the less likely learning is to stick.

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More Than a Dozen Ways to Build Movement Into Learning

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Physical activity that amplifies learning can have a powerful effect on retention and engagement-it's also fun.

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The new question-of-the-week:
How do you incorporate movement in your lessons, and what are its advantages and disadvantages?
Lots of research shows that sitting in a desk for a full class period can hinder student learning and engagement, and just sitting in front of a computer screen during the school closure crisis isn't great, either.

In this two-part series, we'll explore ways to promote student physical movement.

Many are adaptable to distance and hybrid learning, while you might have to wait until after a coronavirus vaccine to use others.

By the way, I'll be publishing many new posts during August and September specifically about helping us all cope with distance and hybrid learning...

Today, Jenny Vo, Valentina Gonzalez, Cindy Garcia, and Bryan Harris contribute their responses. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Jenny and Valentina on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.
Gestures and motions Jenny Vo earned her B.A. in English from Rice University and her M.Ed. in educational leadership from Lamar University. She has worked with English-learners during all of her 23 years in education and is currently an ESL ISST in Katy ISD in Katy, Texas:
Students spend seven or more hours in school a day. It is unreasonable to expect them to sit quietly throughout their lessons and classwork. Movement throughout the day helps students to re-energize their bodies and their brains, helping them to focus and concentrate better. Research has shown that movement during the school day benefits academic performance and improves behavior. In the same context, incorporating movement into your lessons keeps the students engaged and excited about learning. Movement in lessons will also help your students to retain the content more.

So what are some ways you can incorporate movement into your lessons? One of my favorite ways to incorporate movement in a lesson is to add a gesture or motion to vocabulary words or important concepts. For example, for the word "weathering," the motion would be one hand making a chopping motion, representing wind or water chipping away at a rock. For "erosion," the motion would be one hand moving like a wave, representing the movement of sediments from one place to another. Each time the students say the word, they do the gesture/motion. Having the connection between the word and the accompanying gesture helps students internalize the vocabulary.

Another way to add movement to a lesson is to have students respond to questions in different ways that require them to do something. For example, give a thumbs up or thumbs down to show agreement or disagreement. To show that you are ready to answer, put your hand on your chin, rub your hands together, or stand on one leg. When voting or answering a multiple-choice question, students can move to one of four corners. Not only does this allow the students to have movement, but teachers can easily gauge student participation and give quick assessments.

Who doesn't like to sing and dance to an upbeat song? Singing requires the movement of mouth and lips. Add a dance to the song and you have the whole body actively engaged, from the brain in your head to the toes on your feet! An ideal situation for learning to be cemented. If you can't find a song to fit your lesson, write your own!

Some may say that adding movement to lessons takes more time and makes the lesson longer. It's true. However, you can decide how much movement you want to incorporate. Make sure it is authentic and adds to your lesson. I guarantee that little extra time you use will be returned back to you in the form of active student engagement and improved student success.

Using movement to teach vocabulary
Valentina Gonzalez has served 20+ years in education as a teacher, district facilitator for English-learners, a professional-development specialist for ELs, and as an educational consultant. Valentina delivers professional development and coaches teachers on sheltered instruction strategies. She works with teachers of ELs to support language and literacy instruction. Her work can be found on Seidlitz Education and on MiddleWeb. You can reach her through her website or on Twitter @ValentinaESL:

I don't know about you, but for me, memories of elementary and secondary school consist mostly of teachers at the front of the room imparting their wisdom upon us as we sat passively taking it in. Unfortunately, we did not DO much of the moving or talking. When I became a teacher, I wanted to ensure that my students shared the classroom. That we learned from one another and that they were active participants in their learning journey. What I certainly did not want was disengaged students.

Over the years, I found that when I intentionally planned lessons that weaved in movement and talk, students were cognitively engaged with the learning, and I was able to provide them with ongoing, timely feedback as necessary. For instance, as they worked in groups or discussed with a partner, I listened in and was able to clear up misconceptions rather than waiting until a formal assessment to catch their mistakes. We filled gaps before they formed.

Incorporating movement into lessons can be a game changer. It can:

Engage students

Increase comprehension and processing

Provide formative assessment

Decrease unwanted behaviors

So why aren't more teachers incorporating movement in classrooms? Some common reasons for not implementing movement are:

Pressure from the demands of curriculum

Fear of chaos

Worry that students won't participate

Feeling a lack of control

1. Students number off 1, 2.

2. All 1s stand in a line, and 2s stand face the 1s.

3. Students use a sentence stem to discuss the question or topic posed. Explicitly assign who will share first (for example, all 1s talk first, then 2s).

Which is more important, being right or being kind? Explain .... I think being___is more important because ...

What was a leading cause of the American Revolution? One of the leading causes of the American Revolution was ...

Explain two ways to solve this problem. One way to solve this problem is ...

How did the character change from the beginning of the book to now? In the beginning of the book, the character was ... but now ... for example ...

1. When the music begins, all 2s move to the right until the music stops. (I encourage dance here! It makes it fun!!) Everyone has a new partner.

2. Repeat steps 1-4 as many times as you can.

Class examples:

The Conga Line has been successful as a warm-up activity to build background for students as well as a formative assessment toward the middle or end of a unit. It helps students express themselves in a safe, low-stress way while hearing their peers' ideas, too. Step 3 is probably the most important one of all. Providing students with the sentence stem allows them an entry point into the conversation. It helps some students if we read the stem as a class before we begin the Conga Line. I never require them to use the stem, but it's there as a scaffold. Sometimes, I give student 1 a different question from student 2. Or I give a mixture of stems, and after a few rounds, they trade with peers. Following a Conga Line, I typically have students do a quick write because they now have many ideas from speaking and listening to their classmates.

1. Students work in small groups to come up with movements that match each word from

2. a small set of vocabulary words specific to the unit of study.

3. The words and movements are practiced and reviewed repetitively.

4. Each group creates a story using the vocabulary words and movements.

5. Groups present their story to the class.

In the End...
Vocabulary can be challenging for all students. Giving students a list of words to define on Monday and a quiz on Friday just didn't work for me or the students. I found that they weren't transferring the knowledge. Even students who made a 100 on the vocabulary quiz couldn't effectively use the words a week later. To help students internalize meanings, we attached movement to the vocabulary words. This is an adaptation or variation of James Asher's Total Physical Response. (You can read more about TPR: Learning Through Action here.) It took time, but overall, this technique was worth it because students took ownership and really had to think about the words, process the meaning, and develop a movement that corresponded. Here's what we did:

Envision a classroom with a teacher at the front talking as students sit at their desks listening. Some will listen patiently and naturally absorb the words the teacher is saying. Others will strive to comprehend, while many will become bored and begin to find more interesting things to do. Perhaps they will play with their supplies, they might fidget with a toy, distract a neighbor, or even take out a cellphone.

But what if they didn't have the opportunity to get off task. What if they didn't get bored because we put them to work. We engaged them in activity. We put their mind and body into the learning. That's what movement can do in our lessons.

No matter the age or the content area, the benefits of students moving and doing definitely outweigh the disadvantages. Movement in the classroom is essential to the learning process. The Conga Line and attaching a movement to vocabulary are just two easy ways to get kids up and moving while learning. Bottom line is that when we invite students to be part of the learning process and engage them, they become connected and invested in what is happening in the classroom.
TPR Cindy Garcia has been a bilingual educator for 14 years and is currently the district instructional specialist for PK-6 bilingual/ESL mathematics in the Pasadena Independent school district (Texas). She is active onTwitter @CindyGarciaTX and on her blog:

Total Physical Response (TPR) is a great way to incorporate movement during lessons. Teachers and students use their bodies to act out or gesture the meaning of words or concepts.

For example, if the lesson is about the water cycle, then the class would be using their bodies to represent the sun, rain, and evaporation. This helps students associate a word or concept with something they are physically doing. They are putting it in their long-term memory because they will remember swirling their fingers around to form clouds. Another go-to strategy has been parallel lines. Students stand in two lines facing each other, and they share their response to a prompt or question. After they share, one line shifts to the left, and the student left without a partner moves to the head of the line. This is an effective way to get students talking and learning from multiple classmates. A third easy way to implement strategy is posting several tasks around the room and prompting students to rotate and complete each task. The students are up, moving, and energized. The students feel motivated to work as they are moving around the room rather than solving the same problems or completing the same tasks at their desk.

"Start small"
Another way to get students moving during lessons is by having them walk and talk. Students are given a prompt or question to discuss, and they have to walk around the room with a partner sharing their ideas. This is a fun activity for students because they get to spend time with a classmate, and it gives them time to think about what they want to share with the whole class. A disadvantage of these and other movement in the classroom strategies is that it could lead to classroom misbehavior because students are not concentrated in one area of the room and it can be more difficult to monitor behavior. Another disadvantage is that because the students are moving, it can be a challenge to listen in to all of the groups and check for understanding.

As a career-long educator, Bryan Harris has served in a variety of roles from classroom teacher to district-level leader. Now working full time as a trainer, his work focuses on topics ranging from student engagement to teacher resiliency. Find out more at www.bryan-harris.com:

First, the easy part of the question-what are the disadvantages? Cognitively, not many. The brain loves to move, and physical movement has a positive impact on mood, memory, motivation, and engagement. For a taste of some of the research that supports movement and learning, click here, here, or here. Still not convinced? Harvard, Oxford, and other big-time universities around the world are hosting conferences that focus solely on the link between movement and cognition. The evidence is clear: Movement supports learning, and a lack of movement can actually inhibit learnig.

The biggest challenge may be for a teacher who doesn't have effective procedures in place for managing the movement. Strategies that utilize movement may also be a challenge for educators who are not used to using them. Teachers who prefer silent, sedentary environments may find it difficult to embrace lots of student movement. But that's OK-if you are not sure how to begin to incorporate movement into your classroom, keep reading

Knowing that there are tremendous advantages (and tons of research) to getting kids out of their seats, where should we start? If you are not accustomed to classroom movement, start small. Start by having your students stand and stretch, lead a quick game of "Simon Says," or do a Gallery Walk. The idea here is that we are leading and guiding the movement. We are not just letting kids loose and allowing them to run crazy around the classroom. In fact, that image-kids running free and doing whatever they want-is one of the reasons that some teachers are hesitant to allow movement. Effective classroom movement is not chaotic nor is it necessarily unstructured.

So, start small and use effective strategies to directly lead kids in the movement. That's a great place to start, and you'll see positive outcomes for your students.

One more thing. As I train teachers, this question often comes up: "How often should I use movement strategies with my students?" As you can guess, an exact answer to that question is difficult because there are many factors to consider (age of the students, available space for movement, developmental concerns, etc). However, a good guideline is that students should move (or have the freedom to move) about every 30-40 minutes. The main idea here is that long periods of sitting still is not good for learning.

Thanks to Jenny, Valentina, Cindy, and Bryan for their contributions!
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Eight Ways to Use Movement in Teaching & Learning (Opinion)

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Four educators share ideas on how to use movement with students, including for learning vocabulary through the use of the Total Physical Response.

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Your brain may be hard-wired to focus on the negative, but (with practice) you can reprogram it

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What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a state of awareness and a practice; it involves attending to the present moment and cultivating an attitude of curiosity, openness and acceptance of one's experience. It is a secular (non-religious) practice that is backed by a growing body of compelling scientific evidence that indicates a wide range of potential benefits, from improving physical and mental health to promoting pro-social behavior. Mindfulness can play a vital role in helping students and teachers create a classroom environment conducive to learning and personal growth.

Learn More about Mindfulness

Below, you can download our Mindfulness Toolkit-a 90-minute professional development session designed for educators seeking research-based strategies to help their students build this particular competency.

Why Download the Mindfulness Toolkit?

Our free toolkit provides educators with a variety of resources and strategies to support the development of mindfulness.
The toolkit includes:

More information on what mindfulness is and why it matters;

A range of strategies teachers can integrate into their practice at all grade levels;

A video on student and parent perspectives on mindfulness; and

A facilitators guide (including an abbreviated guide for a 45-minute session).

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What is Mindfulness? Mindfulness is a state of awareness and a practice; it involves attending to the present moment and cultivating an attitude of curiosity, openness and acceptance of one's experience.

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4 practices for grades K4-8

These practices help students quiet their minds by developing a stronger connection to their body through guided movement. Utilizing movement based practices in the classroom can help students reset their nervous system when needed so they are better prepared to pay attention and learn.

Standing Balances

Practice Description: This practice is designed to develop focus, physical coordination, and balance energy. It can be useful before testing, with the introduction of new materials or new situations, and in social settings where a connection to oneself or others is required.
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Reset to Get Set

Practice Description: This practice is designed to reset our mind and body through grounding poses and breathing exercises. It is useful after testing, long periods of sitting, or other demanding occasions.
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Ready, Set, Focus

Practice Description: This practice is designed to energize and focus our attention. It can be useful for activities such as testing, working with others in groups, working independently, or when energy is low.
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Strength and Flexibility

Practice Description: This practice is designed to bring strength and flexibility to ourselves, physically and emotionally. It can be used for times when we need to look at a situation differently, bring an open mind to a situation or person, or pay attention to the challenges of a friend or relative.
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Dance for the Sun

Practice Description: This practice helps students warm up their bodies and strengthen all major muscle groups. The flowing movement and breathing are set to Kira Willey's "Dance for the Sun". It can be used to develop focus, as an indoor recess or to create a playful sense of community. Visit KiraWilley.com for more.

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These practices help students quiet their minds by developing a stronger connection to their body through guided movement. Utilizing movement based practices in the classroom can help students reset their nervous system when needed so they are better prepared to pay attention and learn.

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Run, Jump, Learn! How Exercise can Transform our Schools: John J. Ratey, MD at TEDxManhattanBeach