Episode 98: Want More Joy in Class? Start With These 5 Student-Favorite Brain Breaks

I am SO excited to share these Brain Breaks with you today! They were my students top 5 Brain Breaks from last year! I was inspired by Kate Walker's upcoming session for La Familia Loca PLC for our Summer Conference! If you're seeking more JOY for you and your students plus unparalleled support and coaching, get on our waitlist! I would LOVE to be your cheerleader this year!

Links mentioned in this episode: 

La Familia Loca PLC Fourth Annual Summer Conference

Zip Zap Zoom

Name Game

Episode 18- Best Brain Breaks for Back to School

Pass it on 

Doodle Dash resource

Doodle Dash Blog

Platos or Quick Feet

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Transcript:

La Familia Loca

Hey, La Maestra Loca here. If you're a language teacher who's been feeling drained or like you've lost the joy in teaching and you're eager to get it back, maybe you're somebody who's constantly scrolling the internet, Facebook, or Instagram for new ideas to implement. I've got something really special for you. La Familia Loca PLC is a community that I started seven years ago, and it is full of 250 teachers from around the globe who get monthly live webinars with ideas and strategies that can implement immediately, ready to use resources in French, Spanish, and English every single month. There are group coaching and a private Facebook group that feels like family. That's why we renamed it La Familia Loca. If you are ready to feel joyful again in your classroom and ease like you've never felt before because of the support of this community, head on over to my website or follow the link in the show notes and add your name to our wait list so you can be the first to hear when we open the doors in August. I would absolutely love to support you this year, and our community is ready to welcome you.

Welcome!

Welcome back to Teaching La Vida Loca, the podcast you come to for short and sweet and sometimes spicy episodes, full of enthusiasm, magic, and tips and tricks for your classroom. I'm Annabelle, your maestra loca, and I'm here to bring you inspiration, unapologetic authenticity, and ideas to spark more joy in your teaching journey. I'm turning up the excitement and elated to have you right here with me. I'm not just your host; I'm your cheerleader, and I'm thrilled you're tuning in. So, let's do this. Let's tackle teaching La Vida Loca together. Ah, hello! So, freaking excited to record this podcast. That's stupid. I have been so eager to do this all day, and I am knocking on all the wooden things in this room, which is one tiny little desk next to me, that Ophelia doesn't wake up because it is towards the end of her nap, but you know how short and sweet my episodes are, so we can we can get this done, right? We could totally get this done. Yay! Okay, here we go. Here we go. Welcome to episode 98 of Teaching La Vida Loca. I am so freaking glad you are here. It means so much to me that I get to support you in this way every week. I'm gonna be way more frequent with it this year because I'm gonna have more capacity. Because guess what, my son is going to come to school with me again. I get to go to the same school as my little boy, and so Ophelia, Memphis, and I will be all together at the same school, which is going to cut our commutes down by about two hours every afternoon, and Paul about two hours every morning. Our commute was about two and a half hours every afternoon evening because Isla goes to school across the lake, or not across the lake. Oh my God, that would be even longer across the river, and so we were at three different schools last year, and then Paul works in a different part of the city, and we all live in a very far apart suburb of New Orleans. So, it's going to drastically change our lives, and I'm really excited for the time it's going to give me back, it's going to be such a gift. So, I look forward to connecting with you more, and I'm excited to do this podcast for you today. Yay!

Summer Conference 2026

Welcome today. I want to tell you about the La Familia Loca PLC Summer Conference 2026, which is our fourth annual summer conference, and we are literally from this recording four days, 16 hours, 26 minutes, and 53 seconds away from the start of our conference. I am so freaking excited! I don't know how far away from when the point you're listening, but it is going to be the 30th and 31st of July on Zoom. If you are Familia Loca and you are not freaking out, then you need to just go and look at the schedule that you have been sent because it is going to be an incredible two days together. And there's so many sessions I'm excited about, but if I have to pick two, I'm going to pick all, probably the Rock some Rumble with Shane because that is going to be it's a Lanyap session in Familia Loca. We always do something a little extra, which is what the definition of Lanyap is, and so that Lanyap session with Shane is going to be an incredible music session, and we're going to jam out together. And I'm really excited about it. And then I'm stupid excited about Kate Walker's section session on day two. Kate Walker is a member of Familia Loca who teaches French. To elementary students, and literally everything she shares is a number one top hit with my students. Always, everything I've learned from her goes down so well with every age of student I've taught. I've done things with adults that I've learned from her. I've done things with high schoolers that I've learned from her. Everything goes over so well. She's a genius. Her session is called "The Ultimate Playlist: My Favorite Games and My Students' Top Picks. And I think the reason I'm so excited about this one is the title alone. There's so much power in sessions where students guide the work that we are sharing with each other. One of my favorite sessions from last year's conference, which Familia Loca all have access to 2025's conference, was Andrea's session. Andrea Iter did a session that was basically like what my students want me to tell you, and it was full of gold. Everything from strategies to games to social emotional learning things that Andrea does. That these students were like, other teachers should be doing this. Other teachers need to learn about this. You have to share this, and so I just love a session that teachers get input from students about what they should present. So, I'm so excited to learn from Kate, and just the title of her session inspired me to talk to you today about my students' favorite brain breaks from last year.

Brain Breaks!

So, I thought I'd share that because it feels like a good time to do it before we go back into the classroom and we're thinking of what new brain breaks we want to bring with us. Whether we're teaching at a brand-new school or teaching going back and teaching our same kids again, it's fun to have some new ones up your sleeve or maybe some old ones that you forgot about and you should bring back into the space. You know, it's going to be great.

Familia Loca

But before I do that, I want to tell you that if you're not in Familia Loca and you're thinking, "Oh my gosh, there's a two-day conference. That sounds amazing. Every single thing is going to be recorded. So, if you're somebody who has been interested in Familia Loca and this sounds interesting, know that our doors are opening soon. You can get on the wait list. All you have to do is follow the link that's in this podcast show notes. Go put your name on the wait list, and you'll be the first to hear about when our doors open. And this conference will be included in your portal, so you can go in and watch the 15 hours of incredible dynamite PD that we're going to have and instantly walk away with so many ideas that you can implement in the new year. I'm stupid excited for this conference. It's insane. It's really going to be impactful for the members in the community. I'm, I couldn't be more excited. My session's gonna rock too. Oh my gosh! Quick plug for my session, Familia. Come to my session. It's called "What Worked, What Flopped, and What's Next. And I'm gonna be sharing specifically what worked last year because I tried a whole bunch of new last year. I was at a new school, so I figured, what the heck, why not? I'm going to share what absolutely flopped, did not work, that I will not be bringing back, and what some new things, especially after the work I did with Viviana this summer. What things I plan to implement in the new school year, so definitely earmark that session. I'll be presenting at 215 on the second day, on the 31st. And again, if you're not in our community, that's okay. I'll record it for you so you can watch it when you become a new member. It'll be great. Sign up for our wait list and be the first to hear, so you could be the first to join. Okay, here we go. I'm going to tell you now about. Oh, my speaker is telling me that that was just really loud. Hopefully, you were

able to turn me down a little bit in your car. Sorry about that.

Students' Favorite Brain Breaks

Okay, let me dive into some of my students' favorite brain breaks? Are you ready? Are you excited? I'm excited. I'm excited for us. Yay! Okay, the first brain break that I'm going to share with you, I never thought would be a favorite, but eighth graders brought it back, and they brought it back hard last year. Like literally, my eighth graders, if they could pick what brain break, we did every single time, it would be this one, and I want to start with that because they're no longer eighth graders. They're going off to high school, and my God, was it a roller coaster year with them? But yay, La Clace Ecuador has moved on. They are all in high school now, and their favorite brain break by far was Zip Zap Zoom. So, if you are a theater person, you might know zip zap zoom as zip zap zop, but I do it as zip zap zoom. I have a great old blog on this you can watch or you can read, and some videos in there. I will link in the show notes. But basically, all you do because some people are like really like to read in detail, but all you do is you get in a big circle, and you start the energy and you tell everybody. I always tell everybody to practice saying zip zap zoom, and so we practice that a few times, and then all you do is pass the energy around the circle. So, if I say zip, I point at somebody, and I like to put both of my hands together and then point both of my hand’s arms straight out at the next person that I'm passing the energy to. I say zip, they say zap, and they pass it to somebody else, and the next person says zoom, and it goes on from there. Zip, zap, zoom, zip, zap, zoom, zip, zap, zoom, and it gets fast. You want it to go fast. You want it to pass quickly, and then you can get out. You can do eliminations. Middle schoolers and high schoolers love brain breaks that include eliminations because they would like to know who is first, who was best, right? So, they love that sort of thing. I love doing eliminations with this. It's really fun. It's easy to do because if they say the wrong word, they're out. If they take too long to pass on the energy, if they don't make clear eye contact, like for example, if they, if I send zip to Ethan across from me, and then Ethan looks at Taj next to me, but passes it to me. It looks like arms-wise, like his eye contact is for Taj, but the energy is clearly pointed at me. That would be an out. Like he's not passing it accurately. If there's confusion on who is receiving the action, also I am the only person that can say who's out. Like, if other kids are saying no, such and so's out, such and so's out, they're automatically out. That's a really easy way to keep this competitive in a healthy way because I'm sure you're a normal human like me who cannot stand when there's arguing over who's out and who's not. If you play in elementary, I encourage you to just allow there to not be outs. There doesn't have to be outs, but I will say that middle school and high school will probably demand them. So, give the people what they want, give the children what they want, and allow there to be outs. Remember, brain breaks are short and sweet for a reason. They are not games. They should be 40 to 60 seconds long, 30 seconds, some sometimes even less. It's called a brain break for a reason. The first time you teach this, you might take 90 seconds because you have to give the instructions. But then you sit down and you're straight back into what you are doing, okay? That's the first one. Do you love it? I know. You're welcome. Yes, I will link the blog. Don't worry. It looks like there are some videos in there, really old videos. Gosh, this blog was from 2018. That's wild. 2018.

#2

Okay, the next one is definitely pass it on, and I learned this from my dear friend Will Adams, who learned it from Sabrina Jansek, who is one of my favorite French teachers of all time. But Will Adams, member of Familia Loca PLC, and very soon to be guest for us. Familia, get pumped up! Will Adams is going to be our guest for the month. Will is actually presenting in Ajahn right now in in France. Will is their Chinese expert guest teacher. So internationally known and renowned, Will Adams taught me pass it on. It's another one that I have a link to a blog and also a vlog for you. The vlog, the YouTube video, is actually built into the blog, so I'll just share the blog link in the show notes. As another really great brain break that my kids loved, because again, it was in a circle. There's something to be said for brain breaks and circles, y'all. When I think of community, I think of no walls, no boundaries, no dividers. Right? Why is my classroom deskless? There are no boundaries between me and my students. Right? So, I love big circle brain breaks. I also love big circle brain breaks because if you are in a classroom with desks and you're stuck with desks, most of you can find a way to make a circle around desks. Right? You can make a circle in any room. Circles bring a feeling of community immediately and automatically. So, I love it. So, anyways, you form a circle with your kids. And then one student steps out of the room, and then you find an object to pass. In my classroom, we always passed…Sorry, can't get the word out of my mouth. We always pass my little loba unicornio because my dear friend Kristen Wolfe gave me this sweet little hand crocheted unicorn. She's also known as La Loba Lista, if you know her. And so, we pass Loba around the circle, and you do it behind your back. The person that was stepped out of the classroom steps back into the classroom, into the center of the circle, and then is trying to figure out who has loba. The passing does not stop, so you're continually passing the object, but because you're doing it behind your backs, you can fake out. And I swear to you, my sixth graders thought it was the funniest thing ever to constantly like make it look like they have it behind their back, so they'll be like, oh, take it, take it, take it, lo tienes, lo tienes, lo tienes, toma, toma, and so cute. They're using their Spanish, lo tienes, no lo tengo. That's the language I teach for this brain break. Do you have it? I don't have it, and they make it look like they're passing it behind their backs. The person in the middle, unfortunately, doesn't know who's passing it for real and who isn't. So, the person in the middle asks people, and I always limit it to three guesses: Lo tienes, do you have it? And then the person responds: Lo tengo o no lo tengo. I have it or I don't have it, and then after three guesses, they're out because remember, brain breaks under 60 seconds, and we're done. We're moving on. So, pass it on was fantastic. I will link the blog. Big shout out to Will. I freaking love that brain break, and kids do too. It is amazing.

#3

Okay, the next one is the name game. The name game was a brain break that I referenced in my podcast that I did in 2022. I think it was episode 18, and it was like best brain breaks for back to school, and all of those are really great brain breaks too. So, I'll link that episode. But the name game is so great for back-to-school season because it's a quick and easy way to learn lots of names. But I love name game because the enthusiasm and energy for it, the kids' love for name game, never dies. It is strong, literally all year. And guess what? This one's also played in a circle. Love it. Okay, so my favorite circle size is 10 kids. So, you could play with nine kids. You could play with 11 kids. That's fine. But you want to split the circles up. So, if you have a class of 33, then have three circles of 11. Right? You don't want bigger circles than that because it's too hard to get through the game. Because we want brain breaks to be short and sweet, we need this game works best if the circle is not too big. So, you give the circle each circle in your classroom an object. You want it to be something small, squishy, soft, something that they can toss easily without injuring people. That's why I have a million unicorns in my classroom. So, one circle will have Savantha, one circle will have Savannah, and one circle will have Douglas. Okay, and they're all unicorns, and the kids just pass it. So, if I start with it. I'm going to pass it to Journey. Journey is going to pass it to Nevea. Nevea is going to pass it to Dejanay. Dejanay is going to pass it to Taj. Taj is going to pass it to Timothy. Timothy is going to pass it to and notice they're all passing it to a new person. That is key in the end game. You cannot pass it to somebody who has already had the object. How do we distinguish this easily by putting your hands on your shoulder? Once you have had the object, you're going to go ahead and put your hands on your shoulder to indicate, oh, I've already held that object. Do not pass it to me. So, the object continues to get thrown around until everybody's hands are on their shoulders, and then it gets passed to the original person, the next step is super important. It doesn't matter how many times I've done this with adults. Even adults need this next step. Do not pass this next step. Tell students to point to the person that they originally passed it to. They point to that person, and then you say, "Say their name. They say their name, and then you say, "Okay, start passing it again to the exact same person as before, and they repeat that pattern again, saying the name and gently passing. I tell them that as soon as I see that the pattern is recognized and that they've got a good flow going, I'm going to pass in another object. And then that second object gets passed in the exact same pattern, and then a third object, and then a fourth object, and then a fifth object, until it is like this chaos of objects being thrown. But I always take out objects if the throwing becomes overhand or too hard, or we're forgetting names, etc. I can remove objects. They absolutely love seeing which circle can get the most objects, so they know I'm literally not passing one in until everybody's throwing underhand, everybody's saying names, and if there's a circle that's just a little bit too silly and can't get it under control, they're not going to get more objects, and that's okay. But it really is such a fun game, and what's really nice is after the first time you teach it, you'll see kids following that same procedure of like putting their hands on their shoulders. Okay, who did you pass it to? They will start to lead that brain break for you, and it'll it won't be your job anymore. But the first time you teach it, yeah, it might take three minutes to teach the game, right? But it is so much fun. This is another one that I encourage you to just, you know, lean into the joy of it, lean into the laughter, lean into the chaos. It is a favorite for a reason. They love it all year round for a reason. So, I hope that you can lean into that joy a little bit too. I let myself play sometimes too. If I have like a brain break ninja as a class job, then I'll have the brain break ninja go in one circle in my smaller classes, and I'll go in another circle, and then the brain break ninja is in charge of passing a new one in, so that I can play and I can be in the other circle and in charge of passing the new ones in, so it's another great one that if you can afford to step away from managing and overseeing things once they know it really well, it's a really fun one to take part in and be part of the name game. So, I hope you love that one. I know your students will.

#4

I have two more for you. The next one is Doodle Dash. I wanted to share one with you that is good for days that maybe you have a headache, or maybe the math teacher next door is taking a test and hasn't asked you to please not be so rowdy and rambunctious today. This is one of my favorite brain breaks for those days, and it's always a kid's favorite. I love that it's special to wear, like it's something that who my kids who are really artistic and maybe not as outwardly extroverted. Let's say my introverts really love this brain break, and it's fun for the extroverts too because extroverts are extroverts, right? But Doodle Dash is amazing. I have a resource for you in the show notes. All you have to do is click, and I can give you a whole ton of ready-to-go pages for Doodle Dash that you just have to run on the copier, and you can do this brain break anytime you want, you can have them right ready in your classroom, but you pass out the same doodle on a tiny square to every child. So, the way that I have the resource printed is it's four of the exact same doodle on one page. So, you can run off, and I have 10 different pages for you of different doodles. So, it's a tiny little doodle, but it's not finished. So, it might look like half of a bird to some kids, but to other kids it might look like a hat or a dog or the wing of a ladybug or the nose of a very elderly man. Right. So, the doodle will look a little bit different to every single child, and you just set a timer for 35 seconds, 45 seconds, and you say "ready doodle, and they all draw on their own tiny little piece of paper. They all start with the same doodle, but they certainly don't end with the same doodle. And when the timer goes up, off you get them on their feet. They rotate around the room for 15 seconds, laughing at each other's doodles, admiring them, and then boom-they can go in the recycling. A lot of kids take them with them. I had one kid last year save all of their doodles. They saved all of their doodles from the whole year. It was so cool. So, Doodle Dash is a really fun one, and I already have a resource ready to go for you. So, check the show notes for that.

#5

The last one and all-time favorite for sure, hands down, is Platos. That's what I call it with my students. But my brain break blog on it is called Quick Feet, so I will link that for you. It is by far the most adored because it is the most competitive by far, and it is the most adored, regardless of age. Literally every age I've ever taught, this is the favorite brain break. Do you understand? It's an amazing one to have. So, the way you do you do this one is you line. Up, oh my gosh, lines, not a circle. I guess Doodle Dash didn't have a circle either. Well, some of the doodles have circles. Interesting. Okay, so you line kids up. I always tell them four lines because, based on the number of students in my classroom, I need there to be four lines in order for us to fit. If you can all fit in two lines, then that's great. Just work with your space, and they should be facing each other. So, one line is facing in, the other one is facing in. They're directly across from somebody. You may need to play this one if you have an odd number of students in the classroom. Okay, you can play, or you can just tell the kid that's on the end that they will not have a partner for each round, right? Because they will rotate partners every time. You put a plate down in front of them, not a China plate, not a glass plate, not a breakable plate, but a paper plate. I like to use the ones with the like plasticky kind of coating because they're just stronger in general. They hold up better and they hold up longer in my classroom. So I use the tinier little almost like cake size plates with the plastic coating, and then you just start calling out your high frequency vocabulary that you have a gesture for, so I say things like has, wants, goes, likes, lives, thinks that, gives, runs, swims, dives, leaves, says hello, says goodbye, dances, and then when I say robalo or steal it, roalo. My kids steal the plate with their foot, so the plate is in the middle of the two people, and they are trying to put their foot on the plate and drag it towards them faster than the other person can do that. So, they're listening for steal it. Okay. So, I continue with my vocabulary. Tiene, quiere vive, quiere ser quiere comer, quiere bailar, ver de la televisón, juega el basketball, juega el golf, robalo, and boom! On robalo they steal the plate. They are doing the TPR, the gestures for every single action they hear up until then. So, it's really a way for me to like sneak in more input as we're doing a brain break. It feels like a brain break for them because it's so high energy and so much fun. I'm also not using our new vocab. I'm using vocab that I know they know. It is recycled vocab that we have been working on all year round. Yes, this one has a blog. Yes, I have lots of videos for you, so don't worry. I'm linking them in the show notes as well. And that's the last one. That's all of them.

My Students' Favorites Last Year

Wow! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 brain breaks for you that were my students' favorites last year, and I'm confident they will continue to be favorites this year, as well as all the new ones that I have planned to teach them that I've been gathering slowly over the summer. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited! I'm excited, but I can also wait. You know what I mean? Oh my gosh! Okay, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I am sending you so much love from New Orleans. It is so freaking hot here, and I've got about three weeks left until I go back to school. I hope that you have some time left in your summer, and if you don't, and you're already back to it, I hope that these brain breaks can bring you some inspiration. And I can't wait to hopefully share with you all about La Familia Loca PLC's conference. Again, if you're not in the community and you are eager and interested and excited. I'll even link the conference itself to the show notes so that you can see what's what we have in store for members, what sessions are there, and so that you can learn what recordings you will have access to as our future member, because we would love to welcome you and make your year far more joyful than it ever has been before. Let's make this your best year yet, huh? Ooh, I can't wait. Okay, I'll talk to you soon. Take care of yourself, and until next time, I will be continuing to live my best summer life until I will be back to teaching La Vira Loca with you. Take care. I'll talk to you real soon. Bye.