Movement Breaks in the Classroom: Movement Cards, Mini-Workouts, and Kids’ Yoga for Elementary School (XXL Value Pack)

This package combines fitness, kids' yoga, and mindfulness for movement breaks in class. Children can do jumping jacks, stand on one leg like a flamingo, stretch like a cobra, or become a hedgehog, frog, or tree in yoga stories. Many exercises are done standing up and require very little space, so they can be done right in the classroom. For quieter moments, children can massage their ears, breathe through one nostril, or draw a horizontal figure eight in the air with their finger.

What is included in the material

• Movement cards with movement and fitness exercises, as picture cards and as cards with short instructions, plus a handout
• Dice material: picture cards for a foam die, craft templates for a movement die and a yoga die, as well as die-rolling overviews for die workout, die yoga, and the yoga die poster
• Clickable spin-the-bottle wheel for movement breaks, with one version for in-person classes and one for homeschooling
• Mini-workouts as an overview with pictured exercises and as a video with music
• Letter workout and letter yoga with exercise lists from A to Z and suggestions for questions
• Advent calendar with fitness exercises as a clickable presentation and with printable kids' yoga exercises
• Kids' yoga cards with drawn poses for individual children, plus partner yoga cards for two children and chair yoga cards for poses using a chair
• Yoga poster and mini yoga plan: posters with general yoga poses and animal poses, as well as weekly plans with a short exercise sequence for every day
• Yoga breaks as a presentation with sequences of numbered poses, with a chair, and standing
• Yoga stories "A Fairytale Farm Visit", "The Best School Day", "The Treasure Hunt", "Autumn Under the Apple Tree", "Crazy Easter Painting", and "The Star Collectors" to read aloud, each with picture cards, an audio file, a video, and instructions, most also with a presentation of the exercises in the order of the story
• Quiet break with mindfulness exercises as exercise cards, posters, and lists, plus a handout
• Brain-training checklist with linked video challenges to watch and check off

Tips for using the material

• Children lead the way: A child can roll the die and demonstrate the exercise for everyone else to follow—for example, with the movement die as a ritual at the beginning of class, or with the yoga die poster during the yoga break.
• A quick break in between: The teacher or a child can hold up movement cards one after another, everyone does the exercise together, and after a few minutes, class continues.
• As a reward for learning: After completing each task, the children can roll the movement or yoga die and do the exercise they roll.
• One question a day: The teacher can ask a question every day, and the children can answer it using the exercises for the letters in their answer; the longer the answer, the longer the workout.
• By time or repetitions: For the workouts, each exercise can be done for about half a minute or for a set number of repetitions.
• During Advent each day can feature the door or square corresponding to the day's number.
• Experience yoga stories: The stories can be read aloud or played as audio, while the picture cards are shown or the poses are demonstrated at the marked points. The video can be played on a projector, for example, and paused at the appropriate places.
• For warming up in physical education class, the movement die, mini-workout video, and movement cards are ideal.
• For home: The mini yoga plan can be assigned as an active homework assignment, and the brain-training checklist can be printed or shared digitally with the learners.
• Close your eyes: The mindfulness exercises can be done with open or closed eyes; with closed eyes, children can more easily focus on themselves.

These skills are developed

• Strength and body tension through exercises such as squats, push-ups, planks, or wall sits
• Balance during exercises and poses on one leg, such as flamingo, scale, or tree
• Flexibility through stretching exercises and yoga poses such as cobra, bridge, or cat
• Imitating movements from pictures or by following another child's example
• Body awareness and conscious breathing in the mindfulness exercises of the quiet break

Organizational notes

The die exercises require a die, for example made of foam; chair yoga, the yoga breaks with a chair, and individual workout exercises require a chair. The die nets of the yoga die are best printed on slightly thicker paper.

For more movement in the classroom, the movement game for the morning circle and the XXL bundles "Everyone who..." and "Stand up if..." are also suitable.