BRAIN BREAKS
Do you have students who aren't PARTICIPATING, are bored, falling asleep, or don't care to be in class?
START RIGHT NOW! FIND brain breaks to get them up, moving, and happy to be in your class! you won't regret it.
High school/college
brain breaks
HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE BRAIN BREAKS
Order
★ Students line up in order by random criteria: alphabetical by first
name, alphabetical by last name, by age (day and month), hair
length, grade level and alphabetical, height, hobbies, etc.
✓ Four Corners
★ Ask questions with 4 possible answers. Depending on answer,
students move to one of the four corners of the room. EX: favorite
color?, favorite food?, favorite sport?, favorite hobby?, favorite
actor?, etc.
✓ Quiet Ball
★ Using a beach ball, have students toss the ball quietly around the
room. Those who talk, drop the ball, or thow the ball forcibly, are
out.
✓ Sentence-by-Sentence Story
★ First student starts story with one sentence. Each subsequent
student adds to the story with one additional sentence. Story ends
with the last student.
✓ “Minute to Win It” Games
★ Balance: students walk around the room balancing paper plates on
their heads. Add things to the plates to make it more challenging.
When the plates/objects fall, student is out.
★ Water-Bottle Toss: Students take turns throwing a half-full water
bottle on a table. Object is to get the bottle to land standing up.
★ Noodling Around: using only a single spaghetti noodle held in their
mouth, students attempt to pick up six noodles. If the
spaghetti breaks or the student uses their hands, they are out.
✓ Relay Races
★ Students race relay-style outside or safely within your classroom.
Have them retrieve objects from around the room. First team to
finish wins.
✓ Rhythm
★ The first student creates a clapping rhythm and the rest of the class
repeats it. The next student repeats the original rhythm and adds a
few more beats and the class repeats the original plus the addition.
This continues until the entire class has had a turn.
✓ Color Grab
★ Get some sheets of colored constriction paper laminated and cut
them up into 4 pieces. Have students form a circle in the middle of
classroom and toss the colored squares on the floor. Call out a
color in the target language and students grab the color called.
Those who grab the wrong color or don’t have a color are out.
Remove some of the squares and repeat until there is only one
student left standing.
✓ Gotcha!
★ The object is to try to grab another person’s finger on one side of
you, while at the same time avoid being grabbed by the person on
the other side of you. Have students stand up and form a large
circle. Each person should hold out their left hand with their palm
flat and facing up. Now have students take their right hand index
finger and point it directly into the palm of the person to their right.
When the teacher counts to three, the students try to grab the
person’s finger that is in their palm, and at the same time, avoid
being grabbed by the person they are pointing to.
✓ Human Knot
★ Students form small circles of less than 10 people. Each student
puts their left hand into the circle and grab a hand of another
student. Then they put their right hands into the circle and grab a
hand of another student. Now, without letting go, they are to work
together to untie their knot and return to a circle.
✓ Back Writes
★ Students pair up and one student is given a vocabulary word in
secret and they are to write that word on the back of their partner.
The partner tries to guess the word.
✓ Mingle
★ Students mingle around the room asking questions of fellow
students in the target language to try to find a match. Example.
“What’s your favorite color?” If the student’s favorite color is blue,
they are looking for another student with blue as a favorite color.