Fun Brain Breaks For Kindergarten and Preschool

Kids need physical activity and movement.  Fun brain breaks for kindergarten and preschool are some of my favorite things to share about.   To anyone working with children this is not shocking news.  That being said, teachers, parents, and therapists today run into a problem.  So much is demanded out of our children academically with test scores, it’s hard to find time to meet all the expectations and get in all the physical activity they need.  Screen time use is also way up making it even more crucial to find ways that our kids can get in the physical activity they so desperately need.

Fun brain breaks for kindergarten and preschool. Fun ideas on how to implement brain breaks right into lessons, holidays, themes, morning meeting, centers or workshop. Adding physical activity and movement is a must!

Fun Brain Breaks For Kindergarten and Preschool

The term “brain breaks” is a bit misleading.  By giving kindergarten and preschool aged children the opportunity to move we aren’t necessarily giving their brain a “break” but instead making their brains ready to learn.  This is why I love combining movement with learning.  This makes fun brain breaks for kindergarten and preschool easy while implementing it directly into their day.   The kids love this and are having so much fun it’s hard to believe that they really are learning.

Making Brain Breaks Fun With Themes

One of my very favorite ways of making movement and brain breaks fun for kindergarten aged kiddos is by using themes.  This makes it so easy to add movement to any themed lesson, holiday, or season.  I love to use themed brain break cards.   All the different choices of cards make it easy to pick a fun way to move with any theme, holiday, or season.   If the students I am working on are doing an insect unit, I have fun cards that I can add for insect, bugs, and creepy crawlers themed movement opportunities or brain breaks.  Kids are stretching, jumping, and moving on and off the floor and in all directions with these fun task cards.   I especially love how easy to is to implement all the different themes each year.

Fun brain breaks for kindergarten and preschool with movement cards.

Fun Brain Breaks For Kindergarten  – Yoga

I also love to use yoga with kindergarten and preschool aged kids.  Do not let the word yoga scare you if it isn’t something that you do yourself.  The yoga poses are made for kids and do not require major yoga skill.  Like the brain break cards I love to use yoga cards that are themed, go with holidays or seasons.  This again makes it easy to directly tie into lessons and most importantly makes for really fun brain breaks!   I’ve been getting ready to try  St. Patrick’s Day Yoga Cards in the next couple of weeks.  Think of all the great ways you could use something like this!

Fun brain breaks for kindergarten with yoga

Fun Brain Breaks For Kindergarten and Preschool – Stations

This idea for a fun brain break came from my mom, who is a kindergarten teacher.  When doing her workshop in the classroom, she would always have one station that required her kindergarten students to be moving.  She would set up the stations with different movement or brain break activities.  This may have been pictures of different exercises like in these movement cards or it may have been different yoga poses like in these yoga cards.

Circle Time – Fun Brain Break Ideas for Kindergarten and Preschool

Circle time or morning meeting is the perfect time to implement movement and brain breaks for any kindergarten or preschool aged kiddo.  This can be done as simple as having the kids get up and dance to morning songs.  It can be done with the calendar by performing an exercise for the date on the calendar.  For example, if it is March 15th , the kids would do 15  jumping jacks.  This has been a popular way among teachers to use Moving With Numbers task cards.   Moving for weather, dates, and the alphabet are all fun brain break ideas for morning meeting or circle time.  Read in detail about even more ways to add movement into morning meeting.

Fun brain breaks for kindergarten and preschool during morning meeting.

What About Screen Based Activities?

There are a lot of options for screen based movement activities today.  I am a huge proponent of adding any type of movement for kids, but I try my best to try to keep it off the screen.  Kids have a ton of screen time already and having brain breaks for kindergarten or preschoolers on a screen is something I try to avoid.   I’ve found that the really fun brain breaks for kindergarten and preschool aged students don’t come from watching a screen an trying to repeat what is happening on the screen, but from interacting with peers, manipulating and choosing task cards and moving and shaking.

More Ideas?

Want even more ideas for movement breaks in the classroom?  Check out all of the ideas! 

 

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