Brain Breaks

In my main placement and my dyad placement I have heard both teachers talk about brain breaks for students. While, I've heard them talk about them I haven't seen them used as often as I thought I would.

This week I was working with a student one on one and he kept complaining about needing a drink of water or needing to go to the bathroom. I saw him as just trying to prolong working on the assignment so I told him that we needed to finish the problems first. I could see he was having a hard time focusing and I was starting to burn out as well.

I finally told the student that we were going to get up and get a drink of water and then come back to the problem. It was about a 1 minute break but it made a huge difference in both of us and our stamina to finish working on the problem. Both of us were much more focused and relaxed once we stepped away from the assignment and gave ourselves and our brains a break.

This experience has made me realize that an important part of my classroom will be to have brain breaks regularly and when I notice kids losing their stamina. It doesn't just benefit the kids but I saw it also helping me as a teacher.

Here is a list of some brain breaks that teachers can use in the classroom.

Reader's Theater!

This week I got my first in class experience with Reader's Theater and I absolutely loved it! There were 3 separate groups and each group read through the story with their part twice. The first time was just to get an idea of what the story was. The second time we asked them to read it with a lot of expression. I was blown away at how excited and well they read their parts. 

I think the most rewarding part of this activity was that I was able to see students that have been struggling with literacy put in a lot of effort for their part and see how excited they were about reading!

While I was looking around for Reader's Theater scripts I found this site that has lots of scripts and can be sorted out by reading levels.

                               

Students Helping Other Students

This week my heart melted as I observed students in my 3rd grade class interacting with others. I was amazed at how helpful and caring they were towards others.

The first incident happened when my students went outside for a break. One of the students asked the teacher if the kids from the special education program at our school were going to be outside as well. It turned out that they were and I watched this student and many others play with them as if they were students in their own class. One of the students from the special education program is in a walker and as she got stuck on a upward slant the other students came over and helped her get over it.

The next day I also saw a student helping another student during a math lesson. One of the students was really struggling with understanding the assignment. I saw this student getting frustrated and walked over to see what I could do to help. While I was helping her understand, the student sitting next to her was very encouraging. She kept saying, "you can do it" and "try not to get too frustrated." 

I was amazed at how caring these students were. They put effort into helping others and working as a team to get something done. I am so glad I got to see this side of these kids and I can't wait to see what they can all accomplish together.