April vacation is over and it's back to reality. Over break, I realized that I needed something new to help my students finish their year successfully. The return from April vacation can mean one of two things.
1. Students return well rested, more mature, and ready to tackle the rest of the year before they transition into second grade.
2. Students are sillier than ever and somehow magically forget all of the rules they learned throughout the year.
As teachers, we hope for option 1, but for some students we know option 2 is more of a reality. As mentioned in previous posts, I am all about movement. My kiddos need frequent brain breaks throughout the day. However, I had gotten into a rut with the energizers I use in my classroom. Sure, my kids were excited to do a Just Dance, but I needed something more exciting for those beautiful spring days when all anyone wants to do is be outside rather than in the classroom.
After searching blogland, I found a few bloggers had recently blogged about a website called GoNoodle. Check out their posts here and here. They sang this site's praises, so I created a classroom account to see what it is all about. I was able to play around with a demo class so that results and activities weren't saved to my class. This site has various brain breaks that serve different purposes; some are energizing and some are calming. The best part is that you get to pick a class champ, almost like a mascot, that grows and develops as your class earns time by doing brain breaks. I couldn't wait to begin this on Monday!
When I introduced GoNoodle to my students, they were jumping out of their seats with excitement. They couldn't wait to vote on a class champ (they chose Rad Chad) and begin to watch him grow. By the end of Monday, we were five minutes away from advancing Rad Chad from a level one to a level two champ. They could not wait for Tuesday so that they could see what happened to our class champ when he reached level two. Every day, they come in asking to see him and cannot wait to do brain breaks. Even better, they believe that the more well-behaved they are, the more often they will earn brain breaks and get to see their friend, Rad Chad.
1. Students return well rested, more mature, and ready to tackle the rest of the year before they transition into second grade.
2. Students are sillier than ever and somehow magically forget all of the rules they learned throughout the year.
As teachers, we hope for option 1, but for some students we know option 2 is more of a reality. As mentioned in previous posts, I am all about movement. My kiddos need frequent brain breaks throughout the day. However, I had gotten into a rut with the energizers I use in my classroom. Sure, my kids were excited to do a Just Dance, but I needed something more exciting for those beautiful spring days when all anyone wants to do is be outside rather than in the classroom.
After searching blogland, I found a few bloggers had recently blogged about a website called GoNoodle. Check out their posts here and here. They sang this site's praises, so I created a classroom account to see what it is all about. I was able to play around with a demo class so that results and activities weren't saved to my class. This site has various brain breaks that serve different purposes; some are energizing and some are calming. The best part is that you get to pick a class champ, almost like a mascot, that grows and develops as your class earns time by doing brain breaks. I couldn't wait to begin this on Monday!
When I introduced GoNoodle to my students, they were jumping out of their seats with excitement. They couldn't wait to vote on a class champ (they chose Rad Chad) and begin to watch him grow. By the end of Monday, we were five minutes away from advancing Rad Chad from a level one to a level two champ. They could not wait for Tuesday so that they could see what happened to our class champ when he reached level two. Every day, they come in asking to see him and cannot wait to do brain breaks. Even better, they believe that the more well-behaved they are, the more often they will earn brain breaks and get to see their friend, Rad Chad.
Will GoNoodle get us through the remaining 42 days? I think so. Or at least, one can hope! Want to find out more about GoNoodle? Click here to watch videos about how it works.
Image Source:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_12oyIfeYqnk/TAw9nx18LlI/AAAAAAAABN0/8NZ-BFnu3KY/s1600/closedforsummer_color.gif
Image Source:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_12oyIfeYqnk/TAw9nx18LlI/AAAAAAAABN0/8NZ-BFnu3KY/s1600/closedforsummer_color.gif