thebrainbreak

[thebrainbreak]

What Works (and what doesn’t) for the Brain Break

Hello, I am Jason Incudine.  Thank you so much for finding my blog.  I am so glad you are here.  I am a Physical Education teacher in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who has a passion for children’s physical health.  Here, we explore concepts and ideas that will help students gain activity in the classroom while utilizing the technology that they can already access.

This week, I want to focus on encouraging students to make the necessary behavior changes needed in order to enhance their overall physical health.  The concept of becoming healthy is incredibly simple: moderately eat healthy foods and exercise regularly.  However, changing one’s behavior is anything but simple, especially when someone is a young child who is given very little options to change by, not only caregivers at home, but also a school district that is being supplied meals from the lowest bidder who could care less about the nutrition or the development of the children that they are feeding.

Elementary teachers are always preaching the “Growth Mindset” and the “Power of Yet”.  This year, more than any other year, these concepts need to be emphasized constantly.  There are going to be many students who are going to be advancing to the next grade without the skills and knowledge that most students possessed before them.  We need to be patient and encouraging in our approach to educating them.  We need to make sure that we do not get frustrated, and thus, discourage them from growing academically.  This approach can also be used to address the physical health crisis that many of our students are sure to be facing.  I compare it to those exercise infomercials that show a picture of someone on day 1 and then day 90.  Notice that they do not show a picture of the person on day 3, then day 4.  Good habits and positive behavior need time to develop.  They will likely face setbacks, but we need to continue to encourage students to develop the total student, physically and mentally.

We are likely going to be drawn away from using technology in the classroom this year, due to the overwhelming need to use it all of last year.  However, there are many resources on the web that can make the journey of physical health more interactive, engaging, and fun for our young students.  For example, myplate.gov has an app that can help students monitor their own diet in real time.  With many classrooms still following social distancing policies, dancing remains a great way to get physical activity, while staying at a safe distance from classmates.  Kidsbop.com has many dance routines that students can learn independently or as a group.  Like I mentioned in my last post, Youtube continues to release videos that are both educational and interactive for students of all ages to continue to work towards physical health goals that they can develop as this school year progresses.

[thebrainbreak]

[thebrainbreak]

Brain Breaks to Fix the Body

Hello, I am Jason Incudine.  Thank you so much for finding my blog.  I am so glad you are here.  I am a Physical Education teacher in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who has a passion for children’s physical health.

As the Physical Education teacher at an inner-city elementary school, something that I noticed when some students came back for hybrid learning in March was that the majority of the students had put on weight.  Of course, I cannot say that I was shocked.  Many of these students do not have safe spaces in their neighborhood to play.  Many students also are not provided with nutritious food options, nor do they have adults in the home to model healthy eating habits.  However, I was a bit surprised to see just how much some students had transformed their bodies. In an article by Sumathi Reddy in the Wall Street Journal published this past May, medical director of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Rachana Sha mentioned, “I’ve been really shocked by the amount of kids who have gone from normal weight to obese in a short period of time during the pandemic.”  I started to feel discouraged in how we, as educators, could aid them in returning to a healthy body composition.   In my school, students only have one forty five minute period of Physical Education per week.  Of course, I use that time to give them as much activity as possible.  However, also during that time, we are discussing nutrition, the importance of being active every day, and components of fitness that can help them maintain a healthy lifestyle.  As a result, the amount of activity that the students get in my classroom will do very little in offsetting the damage that this past year has done on their overall health.  Discussing student activity with classroom teachers at my school, many mention that they give their students brain breaks throughout the day.  They mention that it is a great way to help students refocus.  I propose that, during this coming school year, classroom teachers increase their amount of brain breaks.  This can accomplish several goals. First, it will help students meet the goal of sixty minutes of activity per day.  Second, it will improve their cardio respiratory endurance and their muscular endurance, which will make it easier for them to stay in activity without tiring.  Finally, increased brain breaks will increase the amount of options students will have at their disposal to be active on their own time.

Of course, the pandemic and it’s consequence of virtual learning is how we got into this mess, but it also has given us the tools to combat it.  The website, GoNoodle has been around for quite some time.  However, since the beginning of last school year they have increased the amount and quality of their content based on the surge of demand.  CosmicKids is another website that has developed yoga routines for younger students with an array of themes that will be sure to interest all students.  The format that I relied on heavily during virtual and hybrid learning was Youtube.  Many educators with some tech savvy skills developed an amazing variety of fun and engaging physical activities.  One thing that I noticed last year was how so many students had favorite videos that they were moving along to on their own time.  Many videos even would incorporate math and spelling, which makes them a terrific option to use during those subject areas throughout the day.

I understand that teachers and administrators have a lot of pressure on them in order to prepare students for the standardized tests, and to meet state and national standards regarding their curriculum.  However, we are seeing just the beginning of a crisis that needs to be addressed. If these kids are not able to redevelop healthy habits, there is going to be a generation of adults with very serious physical health related illnesses.  This generation is going to tax our healthcare system in ways that history has never seen.  We must work together and vigilantly in combatting this crisis.  That is why it is so important to increase the amount of opportunities for physical activity for our students this upcoming school year.