Heidi: This is episode 191 of Teacher Approved.
You're listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping
educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I'm
Heidi.
Emily: And I'm Emily. We're the creators behind Second Story
Window, where we give research based and teacher approved
strategies that make teaching less stressful and more
effective. You can check out the show notes and resources from
each episode at secondstorywindow.net.
Heidi: We're so glad you're tuning in today. Let's get to
the show.
Emily: Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. In today's
episode, we're sharing five simple ways to add movement to
your lessons without losing instructional time, and a
teacher approved tip for managing wiggly students right
before lunch.
Heidi: Let's start with a try it tomorrow, where we share a quick
win that you can try in your classroom right away. Emily,
what is our prompt for this week?
Emily: This week, try adding sparkle fingers to your
transition routine.
Heidi: I love this so much.
Emily: I know okay. So when you need students to stop what
they're doing and listen for directions, have them raise
their hands and wiggle their fingers silently while they wait
for everyone to get ready.
Heidi: This is so fun. It's so cute. It gives those fidgety
bodies something to do with their hands without making
noise. And bonus, you can easily see who's ready. And when all of
those little fingers are wiggling in the air, it actually
creates a pretty magical moment in your classroom.
Emily: I can picture it right now. It's so cute. If you like
this idea, or anything else we share here on the podcast, would
you take a second and give us a five star rating on Apple
podcasts? Ratings and reviews are one way that new listeners
find us, so every rating and review really is a huge help to
us.
Heidi: All right, Emily, why do we need to talk about movement
in the classroom?
Emily: Well, think about how you feel after sitting through a
long staff meeting. I can hear the groans. Your back starts to
ache, your mind wanders, and you're counting down the minutes
until you can get up and move around and get the heck out of
there, right?
Heidi: Exactly. And now I imagine being seven years old
and trying to sit still for hours at a time. The reality is
that kids are designed to move, their growing bodies actually
need movement, not just for physical development, but for
cognitive development too.
Emily: Yeah, because movement increases blood flow to the
brain, which means more oxygen and nutrients are getting
delivered to those adorable little brain cells, and that
translates to better focus, improved learning and, dare I
say it, fewer behavior issues.
Heidi: But I know, I know the resistance that teachers have to
this. I know you're thinking, I have standards to cover and not
enough time as it is. How am I supposed to add movement without
falling even more behind?
Emily: So that's the beauty of what we're sharing today. These
are not separate activities that take time away from your
curriculum. We're going to share some ways to integrate movement
into your existing lessons.
Heidi: So this isn't about choosing between movement or
instruction. You're enhancing your instruction with movement.
And you know, for those of you teaching upper elementary, don't
click away.
Emily: No, these strategies work for big kids too. They might
roll their eyes at first, but trust me, they need the movement
just as much as the little ones, though you might have to work
really hard to get them on board with the sparkle fingers idea,
just saying.
Heidi: But it would be worth it.
Emily: Yes, if you could do it, I'd love to see a picture.
Heidi: All right, let's jump into our five ways to add
movement to your lessons. Strategy number one is act it
out. Can you tell us about this one, Emily?
Emily: Yeah, when your students can become the learning they're
going to remember it so much better. This works especially
well in subjects like reading, science, and social studies.
It's about getting their whole bodies involved in understanding
a concept.
Heidi: I used to do this with vocabulary words all the time.
If we were learning a word like collapse, I'd have the kids
stand up and, you know, literally collapse to the floor
like a pile of blocks, and then we'd use it in a sentence as we
stood back up.
Emily: I love that, because you know they never forgot that word
after doing it like that. Our brains are wired to remember
things that involve movement and emotion, so this strategy really
locks in the learning, which is our goal, right?
Heidi: And this strategy works for sequencing too. If you're
teaching the water cycle, for example, you can have your kids
move around the room pretending to be water droplets. They
evaporate by rising on their toes, condensed by huddling
together and fall down as precipitation.
Emily: Oh, so cute. And you'll hear some giggles, for sure, but
you'll also see the learning in action. I have found this
approach particularly powerful for visual and kinesthetic
learners who might struggle with just hearing or reading
information.
Heidi: And the great thing about acting it out is that it creates
these strong mental images that students can recall later. When
test time comes and they are trying to remember the water
cycle, they'll easily remember physically moving through it.
Emily: Exactly, so you can create movement anchors for
almost any subject. Just think about the key vocabulary or
concepts you want students to remember and brainstorm some
simple movements to go with them.
Heidi: Alright, let's move on to strategy number two. Stand If
statements.
Emily: I love this. It's such a simple way to get kids moving
and get some sneaky checks for understanding at the same time.
So you make a statement and students stand if it applies to
Heidi: So for example, in a science lesson about habitat,
them.
you might say, stand if a fish would live in the desert. Then
students have to process that information and decide to stand,
or, you know, stay seated.
Emily: Or in math, you could say stand if seven times eight is
greater than 50. Or in reading, you could try, stand if you
think the main character made a good decision in chapter three.
Heidi: What I love about this strategy is that it gives you,
as the teacher, immediate visual feedback about student
understanding. You know, if half of your class is standing when
they shouldn't be, you know you need to revisit a concept.
Emily: And it gives every student a chance to respond, not
just the one who raised their hand, plus that simple act of
standing and sitting is enough movement to help reset focus.
Heidi: Just keep in mind that these movement based checks are
maybe not always reliable for deep assessment. Your students
that are unsure will often look around and copy what their
classmates are doing. So these type of strategies are best used
for engagement and quick informal checks rather than
truly measuring mastery.
Emily: Yeah, that's a really good point. I always treated
these as temperature checks. They give you a general sense of
the room, but not precise data on each student. If I saw a lot
of confusion, I'd follow up with more individual assessment
later.
Heidi: And building on this idea, we can also use movement
to show understanding in other ways. This works great for true
false questions, multiple choice, or even just, you know,
general comprehension checks.
Emily: For example, you might say, if the sentence is a
statement, touch your head. If it's a question, touch your
toes. Or show me a right angle with your arms, or even hop once
for each syllable in this word.
Heidi: I like to think of these as human whiteboards. Instead of
writing their answers, the student showed it with their
body. It kept everyone engaged. And it, you know, gave me a fast
way to kind of see who was getting it.
Emily: For a little extra fun, you can mix in some personal
stand if statements too. This would be really fun at morning
meeting. You could do stand if you have a pet, stand if you
like pizza. It builds classroom community while giving kids more
chances to move.
Heidi: Now let's talk about movement strategy number three,
learning stations or rotations.
Emily: Oh, yeah, moving between stations is such a natural way
to incorporate movement. Instead of doing all your math
activities at their desks, set up three to four different
stations around the room and have students rotate around
every 10 to 15 minutes.
Heidi: Even just that short walk between stations gives kids a
chance to move their bodies, and it naturally breaks up the
learning into more manageable chunks.
Emily: And remember, your stations don't have to be
elaborate. One station might be a worksheet at their desks.
Another might be a math game at the back table, and a third
could be a problem solving activity on the carpet.
Heidi: Or you could even designate different parts of the
room for different types of thinking. Maybe the front carpet
is for collaborative discussion and desks are for independent
work, and save the back table for your teacher led
instruction.
Emily: The beauty of this approach is that you're not
adding any new activities to your day. You're just changing
where students do the activities you've already planned.
Heidi: And if you are worried about transitions, which can be
tricky with this type of setting, we have got lots of
tips for that. Go back and check out episodes 48, 49 and 50,
where we deep dive into making transition smoother.
Emily: Yes, and there's great ideas in there for incorporating
movement into the way you do your transition. So those that's
a great series to check out if you haven't listened to it yet.
Okay. Now strategy number four is one of my favorites. So tell
us about this. Heidi, it's academic movement games.
Heidi: I love using games to teach. So this is where you take
a familiar game or activity and adapt it to reinforce academic
content. These are so great to use near the end of the day, you
know, when the kids energy is maybe starting to fade a little
bit.
Emily: Yeah. So one example is sight word freeze dance. So you
can play music and have students dance, and when the music stops,
you hold up a sight word card, and then students have to read
it correctly before the dancing continues.
Heidi: Another fun one is vocabulary charades, where
students act out vocabulary words while others guess. This
was always a hit with my second graders when learning about
science terminology.
Emily: Or even something as simple as equation scavenger
hunt. You can hide index cards with math problems around the
room, and students find a card, solve the problem and bring it
to you to check before finding another one.
Heidi: Having kids hunt for their own work to do will get
them to do way more work than just having a worksheet will.
Emily: Ah, true story.
Heidi: Another way to pair learning and movement is to just
use the walls in your classroom. If your students are stuck in
their seats, try turning your classroom into an interactive
space. Post questions, vocabulary cards, math facts or
even sentence strips around the room, if you still have sentence
strips, and you have your students walk around and
respond.
Emily: And we love to do this with an end of your cumulative
review that we just call an around the room review activity,
and we just stick up the questions around the room, and
they walk around with clipboards and answer the questions. And
suddenly the exact same questions that they would groan
throughout their desks become an exciting adventure, because they
got to stand up and use clipboards.
Heidi: A similar idea is to do four corners questions. You
label each corner of the room with a multiple choice answer,
A, B, C and D, and then you have students walk to their answer.
It's a quick way to gauge understanding and get some
movement in. And it's even more fun if your question has more
than one possible correct answer. So then you can have
some discussion about why they chose corner A, and why those
kids chose corner C and their different reasoning behind it.
Emily: Yeah, that way you don't also have a stampede of all the
kids just running to one corner.
Heidi: Yes, also that.
Emily: What's great about these games is that they don't feel
like work to students. The movement makes the learning more
engaging and memorable.
Heidi: And they are perfect for those times when energy is low,
you know, like after lunch or toward the end of the day.
Instead of fighting the wiggles, you are channeling them into
learning.
Emily: Our fifth and final strategy is probably the
simplest. Use intentional brain breaks.
Heidi: Brain breaks are short movement activities, usually one
to three minutes, that give students a chance to move,
stretch and reset their focus. In my class, we needed these
after any focused work, probably longer than about 20 minutes.
Emily: Yep. And the key to making these brain breaks
intentional is that, instead of waiting until the kids are
climbing the walls, you plan for these brain breaks at natural
transition points in your day.
Heidi: Maybe that's between subjects, or after a time of
focused work, or, you know, when you notice engagement starting
to dip a little bit. This way you are being proactive instead
of reactive.
Emily: And as you know, there are tons of brain break ideas
out there. You could do stretches or a quick game of
simon says or follow along with a go noodle video.
Heidi: And we actually have our own set of printable brain
breaks if you want something that doesn't require technology,
which sometimes can be a real hassle if you're in a tight
bind. Our brain breaks are Print and Go cards with three
different types of activity styles to match whatever your
class needs in the moment.
Emily: Yep, we've got recharge activities for when kids need to
get the wiggles out, refocus activities that help students
calm down and prepare to concentrate again, and refresh
activities that engage their minds in fun ways. You can find
the brain breaks in our shop, and we'll put a link to them in
the show notes.
Heidi: What I love about brain breaks is that they actually
save you time in the long run. Yes, you know, you're spending a
minute on movement, but you're gaining several minutes of
improved focus afterward.
Emily: It's like paying interest on an investment. That one
minute brings returns in the form of better behavior and more
efficient learning, and it prevents that cycle where kids
get wiggly, behavior deteriorates, you have to stop
and redirect, and suddenly you've lost five minutes anyway.
Heidi: It is definitely better to give them one minute of
structured movement than to lose five minutes on the chaos. When
I was a brand new baby teacher, I was really reluctant to waste
time on something that felt as frivolous as movement.
Emily: Oh, me too. I just thought movement was something
extra, something I could only do if we had time. But now I can
see that it's an essential part of effective teaching.
Heidi: Movement isn't a distraction from learning. It's
a catalyst for learning. When we work with children's natural
need for movement instead of against it, everyone wins.
Emily: Okay, so let's quickly recap our strategies for adding
movement to your lessons. First, act it out. Let students
physically become the learning. Second, stand if statements. Get
kids up and down while checking understanding. Third, learning
stations or rotations. Change where students do their work.
Fourth, academic movement games. Turn review into an active game.
And finally, fifth, intentional brain breaks. Plan short
movement activities between learning segments.
Heidi: And remember, you don't have to implement all of these
at once. Please don't feel like that. Even adding one movement
strategy to your day can make a big difference for your wiggly
little learners.
Emily: We'd love to hear which of these strategies you try in
your classroom. Come join the conversation in our teacher
approved Facebook group.
Now let's talk about this week's teacher approved tip. Each week,
we leave you with a small actionable tip that you can
apply in your classroom today. This week's teacher approved tip
is manage those pre lunch wiggles. Tell us about this one,
Heidi.
Heidi: Well we all know that right before lunch can be one of
the wiggliest times of the day. Kids are hungry. They've been
working hard all morning, and their focus is waning.
Emily: Oh, yes, I used to dread that 15 minutes right before
lunch, because it was like herding cats no matter what.
Heidi: So instead of fighting those wiggles, one thing you can
try is a standing station for the last 10 minutes or so before
lunch. Designate a few areas in your room where students can
stand to complete their work.
Emily: Okay, I love that idea. What does a standing station
look like?
Heidi: Well, it's really just anywhere kids can stand. It
might be a counter or a shelf at standing height, or really even
just a clipboard that they can use while standing at the wall.
And then when you notice the wiggles are starting to ramp up
before lunch, offer the option to move to a standing station to
finish their work.
Emily: Oh, this is brilliant, because it gives kids the
movement they need without disrupting the flow of your
lesson. And for some kids, standing actually helps them
focus better than sitting.
Heidi: Oh, exactly. And the beauty is that you don't need
anything special or any extra planning. It's just offering an
alternative workspace, assuming that you give them the
consequence that if they can't handle making that choice,
you'll have to choose where they stand or have to go back to
their desks.
Emily: Oh, for sure. This is an option that you would want to
introduce with some expectations and practicing how they should
behave there and letting them know what the consequences are
if they don't follow those expectations. Or this could tune
into a nightmare.
Heidi: Yeah, being clear about expectations is going to make or
break this. Be clear that standing work is still work
time. It's not a social break or a time to wander around the room
and try out all of the different spots.
Emily: Yeah. And you probably want to start small with this
idea, with maybe just three to four standing spots at first,
and then you could use a rotation system if lots of kids
want to try it. And then if you find that it's popular and it's
helping your students, and you've established good
expectations for it, it could become a more regular option in
your classroom. But for sure, some kids are probably never
going to want to stand there, and some will probably want to
stand there a lot, because it helps them focus better. It just
depends on the kids.
Heidi: And really this is such a simple adjustment, but it can
make a big difference in managing that challenging time
before lunch.
To wrap up the show, we are sharing what we're giving extra
credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?
Emily: I'm giving extra credit to the TV show The Pit on Max.
When this first came out, I didn't pay any attention to it
because I don't generally watch hospital things. I mean, okay, I
was very into Grey's Anatomy in the original, in the original
first few seasons, when it was so good. And I did watch the
original seasons of ER as well, which also had Noah Wiley in it,
who is in The Pit, yes. But somebody was raving enough about
it that I'm like, I'll just give it a try. And guys, it is so
good. It is set in this Pittsburgh ER, and each episode
is one hour of one day, so the whole season is just like one
shift on one day. And it is so well done. Now, I will say,
because it's on max instead of like on NBC, there is a lot more
gore. So just being prepared for that. I am a pro from my years
of watching Grey's Anatomy, of just knowing when to look away.
Unknown: When the squishy sounds start, you need to mute the
squishy sounds.
Emily: So I do tend to watch this when I'm doing something
else that I can just look away when I don't want to watch
what's going on, but like the stories and the format is so
interesting in the way that these stories build from episode
to episode. Since it's all in the same day, you're seeing
patients over several hours, and I have just found it to be super
captivating. I've totally binged it. There's like, one more
episode coming out this week, and then I'm gonna be sad, but
there is already a season two confirmed. So if you start this,
you can know it's not gonna disappear. You can, it's worth
committing to.
Heidi: That's good. There's nothing worse than getting
attached to a show only to have it cut and axed from your life.
Emily: I know. So if you watch this, let me know what you
think. Not you, Heidi. I mean you too, if you want to. Not
that I don't want your opinion, but I know you won't watch it.
Maybe somebody you will. But if somebody else watches it, come
and talk to me about it. What are you giving extra credit to,
Heidi?
Heidi: Well, how's this for a segue? I'm giving extra credit
to magnesium threonate because it did, it has saved my life. So
like back in the fall, my doctor suggested I switch to that
rather than whatever I was taking via citrate, whatever
form of magnesium I was taking, because threonate crosses the
blood brain barrier. That's a thing, right?
Emily: So smart. You're so smart.
Heidi: I could work on that show, that medical show.
Emily: You totally could.
Heidi: And so I switched over, and I thought, like, I mean,
yeah, I guess it seems fine. I'm not really noticing any, like, I
didn't get any superpowers. I'm sure it's great, but it is a
little bit expensive. I mean, it's not crazy, it's, you know,
30 bucks for a month. It's not crazy, but when you can get
magnesium, a lot cheaper, it just seemed like some place I
could save money. So early in March, sorry, this is turning
into a story. Early in March, I just went back to the other
magnesium I was using, and then I didn't notice that my restless
legs started to ramp up. And then suddenly I was like up for
hours and hours every night, and I couldn't figure out what's
going on until I remember that I had just switched over the
magnesium. So I'm saying all that to say, if you also deal
with restless legs, trying out magnesium threonate could be a
game changer, because once I got back on that, it took a couple
nights, but I have not had this problem since.
Emily: Well, now you've done a perfect case study of one. This
works great for restless legs. So if that applies to you out
there, you should try it too.
Heidi: And if you have been there, you know how desperate
you are to try anything. I've tried it all because it's the
worst feeling to just like be laying there and having your
legs go on an adventure without you. You just want to sleep.
Emily: And I've been taking this. I don't have restless
legs, but I have been taking this, and I feel like I've been
sleeping better too. But I don't have a perfect example like
yours. It's one of those like, Well, I think I'll just keep
taking it, because I think it's doing something. I guess if I
wanted a case study of one for me, I could stop taking it, but
I don't want to do that.
Heidi: Because I didn't even think it was doing anything,
because it took so, you know, it took a while, a couple weeks,
probably, to kick in. And so I didn't make the connection. I
just was like, Well, yeah, that problem suddenly fixed. I don't
know what I did, but yay me. I learned. I love that stuff. Now
I've got bottles and bottles of it in my bathroom cabinets.
Emily: We will link to it in the show notes.
Heidi: That is it for today's episode. Remember adding
movement to your lessons doesn't have to be complicated. Try one
of our five strategies and see how your students respond.
Emily: And don't forget our teacher approved tip for
managing those pre lunch wiggles with standing stations.
Sometimes the simplest solutions make the biggest difference.
Heidi: Thanks for listening to the Teacher Approved podcast. If
you found this helpful, please share it with a teacher friend
who might need these ideas too.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I'm Heidi.
Emily: And I'm Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow
or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an
episode.
Heidi: You can connect with us and other teachers in the
Teacher Approved Facebook group. We'll see you here next week.
Bye, for now.
Emily: Bye.