Brain breaks for kids
Start with
- Minutes
- 7
- Ages
- 4 to 6
- You need
- nothing
- What it is
- Moving on your hands and feet is how every strong body starts.
12 short, quiet movement breaks
| Break | Minutes | Ages | You need | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Animal Parade | 7 | 4 to 6 | nothing | Moving on your hands and feet is how every strong body starts. |
| Red Light, Green Light Squats | 8 | 4 to 6 | a chair, a wall | A squat is just sitting down on a chair that isn't there. |
| Teddy Bear Carry | 7 | 5 to 6 | a ball | Bottom back, chest up, flat back: the way everybody should pick things up. |
| Three Minute Shake-Out | 7 | 6 to 9 | a wall | A few minutes counts. It always counts. |
| Carpet Three | 8 | 6 to 9 | a wall | You never need a gym. You need a bit of floor. |
| Twenty On, Ten Off | 8 | 9 to 12 | a wall | Short and hard builds a different thing from long and steady. You want both. |
| Morning Stretch | 6 | 6 to 9 | a wall | Bendiness is a thing you train, like strength. It just takes longer. |
| After Sitting All Day | 8 | 9 to 12 | a towel, a wall | Sitting still shortens things. Stretching gives them back. |
| Waddle and Kick | 7 | 5 to 6 | nothing | Moving low and moving on all fours are two things a body forgets how to do. |
| Before Bed Stretch | 6 | 6 to 9 | a wall | Slow stretching at the end of the day tells a busy body it is allowed to stop. |
| Long Legs | 7 | 9 to 12 | a towel, a wall | Bendiness is trained like strength is. It just takes longer and feels like doing nothing. |
| Desk Side Three | 7 | 6 to 9 | nothing | A few minutes of moving resets a brain that has been sitting still. |
20 quiet games
| Game | Who | Minutes | Ages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beat Your Own Time | one child | 5 | 5 to 14 |
| Mirror Me | pairs | 5 | 4 to 14 |
| Copy the Pose | pairs | 5 | 5 to 14 |
| Keep It Up | pairs | 6 | 5 to 14 |
| Rock, Paper, Scissors, Squats | pairs | 6 | 6 to 14 |
| Pass and Move | pairs | 7 | 6 to 14 |
| Freeze Dance | the class | 6 | 4 to 11 |
| Animal Tag | the class | 7 | 4 to 11 |
| Simon Says Moves | the class | 6 | 4 to 12 |
| Shadow Me | pairs | 5 | 5 to 14 |
| Traffic Lights | the class | 7 | 4 to 11 |
| Hold It Till It Comes Back | the class | 6 | 7 to 14 |
| Roll an Animal | the class | 6 | 4 to 11 |
| Balloon Keep-Up | one child | 6 | 4 to 12 |
| Steal the Sock | pairs | 6 | 6 to 14 |
| Wheelbarrow Walk | pairs | 5 | 7 to 14 |
| Two Balls at Once | pairs | 6 | 8 to 14 |
| Everybody's It | the class | 6 | 6 to 12 |
| Captain's Coming | the class | 7 | 5 to 12 |
| Pass the Pose | the class | 5 | 5 to 14 |
Why they work
Moving gets more blood and oxygen to a brain that has been still for forty minutes, and it resets attention in a way that asking for attention does not. Plenty of teachers also find a class settles to reading more easily after one — which is why the Gym sits beside the library rather than instead of it.
The practical reason they work is smaller: a child who has been asked to sit still for a long time will move anyway. A brain break decides when.
Running one in a classroom
- Pick the quiet ones. Nothing on this page jumps, stamps or drops, so the class below will not hear it.
- An arm's length each, beside a desk, is enough room for every break listed here.
- Two to five minutes is plenty. Longer and you are running a PE lesson in a classroom.
- Every move has an easier version and a seated version, so a child who cannot stand still takes part.
For a hall rather than a classroom
The PE games are the whole-class ones, and the Gym's teachers' page has the class workouts.
Why nothing here mentions weight
The Gym never mentions weight, shape, size or calories, and never suggests eating less. About sixty of those words are refused in the code itself, in every line a child reads, including the spoken ones. What it says instead is strong, fast, springy, steady and bendy — and that food is fuel.
Nothing is sent anywhere
The Gym is free, with no ads and no sign-up. There is no camera, no pose detection and no leaderboard. What your child has done and their own best times stay on their own device and are never sent anywhere, so there is nothing to lose and no account to make.
Teacher? Share this page to Google Classroom. Children open it with no sign-up.
Checked against how Peabody works on 29 October 2026. Written with help from AI, from Peabody's own code and library. Peabody is a learning app, not an assessment: if you're worried about your child's learning, talk to their teacher. How Peabody's pages are made.