By

Stephanie Endicott,   Gilbert Elementary School

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Topics:

Physical Activity Participation,  Student Leadership

Our team is made up of third and fourth graders. One team member, "J", decided to get with her group in her class and discuss the idea of doing brain break activities. She talked with her teacher about it, and he agreed to allow them to do the brain break exercises each day before class began, and right before lunch time. It was a great success because the students enjoyed it, and other classrooms started to implement the exercises in their own classrooms. The classes started using the Fuel Up to Play 60 exercise chart where they roll a dice and the dice coordinates with an exercise on the chart.

What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

In the beginning, it was difficult to decide when to fit the exercises in because teachers have a lot to accomplish in one day! However, after discussing the issue with the classroom teacher and helping come up with solutions from the team, the team was able to decide on doing the exercises first thing in the morning and it didn't interrupt any teaching time!