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Many of us are longing for spring, but it’s still February! It’s a great time to perk up your class with quick energizers sprinkled throughout the day. Here’s one called "Double This Double That"—especially fun for students in grades three through six. It’s taken from Energizers! 88 Quick Movement Activities…

Last week, I encouraged you to work energizers—quick breaks that get children moving, breathing, and having fun together—into your classroom day. Energizers are great ways to get children refreshed and refocused on learning anytime during the school year. They can be especially helpful during the winter months, when many children…

During the long winter months, when children may experience less physical activity and movement, try sprinkling in some energizers—quick breaks that get children moving, breathing, and having fun together—throughout the day. These much-needed physical and mental breaks can increase children's motivation for learning, and can also make their learning more…

It's always affirming when studies corroborate behaviors that we already practice, or at least espouse. For example, on the personal front, I've been thrilled to see nutrition articles lately citing evidence that kale and sweet potatoes are good for me, since they are two of my favorite foods. (And let's…

When I was a physical education teacher, I was always on the lookout for fun, cooperative games for my youngest students. I learned from experience that five- and six-year-olds need a great deal of physical activity, and they also have limited attention spans, so it was important to find games…

Yesterday somebody who'd read Margaret Wilson's post, "Handling Halloween High Spirits" asked "What's the 'Magic Box' activity she refers to?" I wasn't familiar with that one either. Since Margaret is presenting at one of our one-day workshops today, Babs Freeman-Loftis filled me in: Magic Box Begin by ceremoniously gathering up…

Singing a familiar tune or chant in another language can enliven a Morning Meeting, be a fun energizer, and help meet the needs of the growing number of second language learners in our classrooms. Although they sometimes laughed at my poor accent, the children in my class who were native…

Last spring, an intrepid group of Northeast Foundation for Children staff members, including several Responsive bloggers, volunteered to demonstrate a few of the activities in Energizers! 88 Quick Movement Activities That Refresh and Refocus, K–6. Author Susan Roser led the group through the energizers our editors felt were the trickiest…

This video is excerpted from The First Day of School in a Responsive Classroom, which was filmed on the actual first day of school in Caltha Crowe's third grade classroom in 2007. Caltha mentions using this activity at arrival time on the first day of school in "Knowing All Our…

You know it instinctively, you see it every day in your classroom, and brain research supports it: Children learn better when we give them mental and physical breaks from intensive instruction. Just two or three playful minutes of moving, breathing deeply, laughing together, and singing or chanting relaxes children's bodies…

A: When my students need a change of pace we'll often play a few rounds of "Spelling Around the World." They love this fast-paced game, which reinforces spelling and vocabulary words and encourages paying attention and listening. Here's how it works: First, everyone stands up. Then I say a word…

Despite increasingly packed school schedules, one-size-fits-all curricula, and standardized testing, schools can reshape children's days in ways that help them learn, grow, and enjoy childhood. In her classic book, Teacher, educator Sylvia Ashton-Warner describes the daily rhythms of classroom life. Simply and poetically, she writes that children need time to…

Question: What's one way you've refashioned a competitive game to make it more cooperative and still fun? A: In pinball, my dodgeball replacement, players throw or roll balls to knock down small plastic bowling pins. We use two teams and several balls per team. To start, the teams face each…

I remember singing along with friends in my elementary school days. Teachers and students together began each day with singing. We learned about music from our music teacher, but we sang everywhere, in our classrooms and on the playground. One winter at recess, we stepped out on snow banks to…

Do you remember the playground on a bright spring day, flinging off your coat in a mad dash for the monkey bars or choosing up teams for a fast game of dodgeball? For many of us, these memories of the places and games we played as children are among our…

It's a cool, crisp, autumn morning as 100 second and third graders burst onto the playground for a much-needed break from the academic demands of the day. Some make a beeline to a kickball game starting up in a far corner of the playground with the "recess/lunch teacher" serving as…

Question: Many teachers spend a lot of time creating good beginnings to the school day through carefully planned morning meetings. But what about the end of the day? In this newsletter's Teacher to Teacher section, NEFC consulting teacher Carol Davis talks about using a closing meeting to bring the school…

It's 3:23 and my class has just finished a science experiment. I look at the clock and realize we have seven minutes to clean up from science and do everything else we need to do to walk out the door at 3:30 to go home. "Okay class, we have seven…

When I was a child, music found its way into the daily life of most elementary classrooms. My sixth grade teacher, Mr. Monahan, started each day with the pledge and the piano. He would sit down at that old black upright each morning and we would sing a different patriotic song each day,…