Brain Breaks to a New Level with GoNoodle!

Ever had one of those days when it's too cold to go outside, it's been overcast and snowing for days, and your students are going crazy?  Oh wait, that has been almost all winter for a lot of us here in Indiana!  Well, a great new website and resource is now here to help ease your Winter Blues and those mid-year burn out days.

Have you heard of GoNoodle!?  It is an awesome website with brain breaks and an interactive avatar that students get to build upon and follow.  What I love most about these brain breaks is that they are categorized by your intent of the break.  Are you wanting to energize your class?  Focus them?  or Calm them?  GoNoodle lets you channel your students' energy based on the breaks you select.  I love that it is more intentional than the brain breaks you might find on Pinterest.  They each have a focus, and students have some choice.

Once you sign up and log in, you get to personalize your experience for your classroom.  Do you have several different classes?  They'll let you create more than one classroom.  After that, you choose a "Champ" (digital mascot or avatar) to reward students for their work.

Here are some of the Champs to choose from.  To get students on board, they would obviously make the choice of the Champ they'd want to start with, but they are all super creative and fun!

After this quick set up, you're off to the races to pick your brain break and start stretching, exercising in place, or doing breathing activities.  The reward?  Student engagement!!   

So head to the website and get started.  If you already use it in your classroom, I'd love to hear what your students think about it. 

Also...a big announcement!  A bunch of bloggers will be having a Spring Cleaning Sale very, VERY soon!  Check back for the details! 

Well, today instead of running, I walked around the mall with my mom and the baby for a long time!  I'm going to count that as my exercise.  Oh yea, and Gap was having a 40% off sale - never a bad thing!