So today is official launch day for my book! Want to find out a little bit more? Check out the website for The Ultimate Guide to Brain Breaks or watch this quick introduction. {click here if video isn’t showing}
Movement plays such a powerful role in the learning process and I’m so excited to get this wonderful resource out there to parents everywhere! This is a perfect read for any parent – whether you are in the midst of the homework trenches or busy homeschooling. So please pass the word along. We can all benefit from incorporating more movement into our days. The ebook is available for only $4.99 over the next three days, so now is the time to snag it before the price goes back to normal!
One of the 60 brain break activities that I include centers around an exercise ball. Do you have an exercise ball? I bought one when I was pregnant. It’s taken the longest time to stop calling it a birth ball. Oh how I loved to drape my pregnant body across it. It became my seat of choice too. In fact, I even deflated it and took it on vacation with me when I was pregnant with Greta!
Now we use this ball to do all kinds of stretches.
I think this is one of the most powerful brain breaks that I’ve included in my ebook. Of course, I say this because I’ve noticed the biggest difference for me personally. Yes, you read that right. I do these brain breaks too. Because I’m so busy during the day with parenting, homeschooling and feeding the family, most of my writing, blogging and such happens at night. I don’t know about you, but by evening I’m pretty fried. When I need to put my focus into hyper-drive I usually opt for a run around the block or some stretches on the exercise ball. This one is my favorite:
It’s amazing how a few minutes stretching and being upside down will really help bring your thinking into focus! To celebrate the launch of the book and because I think every family can benefit from having an exercise ball around, I’m hosting a giveaway. Use the rafflecopter widget below to enter for a chance to win both a copy of my ebook and an exercise ball. If you’ve already bought the book, I’ll refund you the cost of the book, so feel free to snag it at this special price while you can!
You’ll get your pick between a 55cm yellow exercise ball or a 65 cm green one.
Only US residents can win BOTH the ebook and the exercise ball. If you live outside the US you can still win a copy of the ebook so go ahead and enter!
Be sure to follow Ultimate Brain Breaks on facebook too!
I NEED to incorporate movement in my day… help : )
We go outside. Lots of bicycles and scooter time.
We exercise, I also occasionally make my squirmy kids run a few laps to get energy out.
Play fun music, everyone has to move to fun music
I have a 4th grader that could use this, I think. Congrats on the book!
For the kids I send them outside for “recess” and they take care of movement on their own. For myself I’d have to say running up and down the stairs to clean or do laundry. Would love to give one of these balls a shot. Especially for rainy days.
I homeschool both my children so when bordem or the I don’t want toos settle in we have a silly break and shake our uglies and run in place
I have one child that needs this! My other child poked a hole in my exercise ball!
love to do some jumping jacks for a minute to get our minds moving again.
We have a small trampoline near our school area that the kids can go bounce on when they get antsy. But I would love to incorporate some more of your ideas to augment. So fun and engaging.
We love walking and jumping on the trampoline,
Would love to try out this book. We take a lot of breaks, but my boys usually jump on the computer for a few minutes. If they are too wiggly we jump on the trampoline or go outside. I would love to have some great ideas to get out the wiggles inside. Thanks!
We normally take a walk around the garden
Any extra time in the day, prior to our next subject, I have my children go outside to get some energy and sunshine!
Sunshine and fresh air is so powerful!
I have 5 boys ages 16-7 (and 1 4yo rambunctious girl) enough said :o)
We do take breaks between subjects. DH even built a “climbing wall” and monkey bars (apply named) for them to get out their energy. We even have an exercise ball and peanut – but I’d really enjoy knowing how to incorporate them better and with 6 little monkeys – another ball would be handy!!
Thanks so much for the give-away!
Honestly we don’t really incorporate movement into our Home school day. My kids tend to be easily distracted and fidgety. They will get out of their work space and move about in random ways but because we don’t do this intentionally it tends to happen in the middle of their work and distracts the others or prolongs our studies. I think if we set up something like this it may help them focus better but I lack the creativity to come up with the plan on my own. Hoping to get this as I think it may be very useful for us. Thanks!
We like to go for walks or do quick movements like jumping jacks or “laps” around the house.
I would love more ideas to do physical into the day. We love Greg and Steve cd animal action and actions songs at circle time but those sem to be at the beginning needn’t do more in the middle
I love to go for walks with my kids, and while walking we try to see how much nature we can see and name.
I am not sure I’ve adequately incorporated movement into our school day. My son moves all day long while he works, but I’ve never thought of using that need to help him structure his mind. I am very much looking forward to reading this to learn more.
We like to race each other around the house…and the 3 year old usually wins!
I’m not sure if it’s my favorite but doing household chores like the laundry and vacuuming the house is a way for me to incorporate movements! Looking forward to trying the Ultimate Brain Breaks. =)
Not a favorite over here either, but it sure does get the blood pumping as an extra benefit aside from getting the house clean! 🙂
This sounds great! I sometimes forget to give us all a break to get recharged in my pursuit to get everything done!
Great idea!
hanging laundry–lol 🙂
I love it when my kids join me in kickboxing!!
A jar is a great idea. It is crazy how simple this is but how in the moment I never remember how effective wheelbarrow walks are.
I LOVE this idea. I would love this book. I’m not sure I can afford even $5 right now so it would be great to win this.
Lorie, I can so relate. We’ve had seasons where we were down to rice and beans with no extra money whatsoever. Jennifer over at Godly Glimpses is hosting a giveaway for the book right now too. You can head over there to enter if you want. http://godlyglimpses.com/brainbreaksreviewgiveaway/
We go outside together!
Excited for you! And how cool to offer a fun giveaway. 🙂
I have my students take a movement break quite often. It especially helps the ADHD ones come to focus for a lesson. I’m thinking of asking parents to get exercise balls for their younguns to sit on at school.
That’s a brilliant idea. Your students are blessed to have you as their teacher. My first grade teacher would let me walk laps around my desk when I really needed to move…
I have two rambunctious boys and this would be a great addition to our school day!
I am so excited about starting brain breaks with my three boys! This really is an answer to prayer with our first year of homeschool just getting started. Thanks for the give away too!
I am so excited to read your book! During school, I give the kids breaks by going across the street to the park to play. We also go on family walks or bike rides. Sometimes we do sprints just because there is a lot of extra energy that needs to be used up! 🙂
So LOVE seeing this book and your great ideas come to fruition! My favorite way to incorporate exercise is to run around the room or skip down the hall or do jumping jacks in between our various school subjects. 🙂
~Jessica
So thrilled to see this come to fruition!
I cannot get the video to load :(. So proud of you!
What a neat way to get back to being focused! My daughter does jumping jacks or runs to the fence and back.
Congrats on your new book! How exciting. And love that last picture! 🙂
My favorite way to incorporate exercise is to be active with my kids. We may be riding bikes or running around in the backyard. Or I like to go for a run by myself around the block.
Interesting idea! Can’t wait to try this with my boys…
Awesome. I will have to remember this for sure. It would be great to have one of these around.
I need to add more movement…it seems the most movement I do is cleaning! I do try to make an exercise out of going up and down the stairs (which I do 100 times a day!) 🙂
On the brain breaks newsletter confirmation on the rafflecopter I accidentally put the wrong email address. It was one of those things where I hit enter then saw it was wrong. I did subscribe…trheath at bellsouth dot net
How neat! I too have a birthing ball; I mean exercise ball. 🙂 I never thought to use it like this. My oldest is in 2nd grade (homeschool) and she has a hard time staying focused. I can’t wait to learn more about this. Thank you!
I wish somehow our school could do this stuff.
More and more schools are beginning to recognize the need to get our children moving. I would tell them about this book. It might be something your child’s teacher would want to incorporate into the classroom. I give some examples in the book of how this has been successfully implemented in the classroom and the amazing results teachers have seen. I just had a school buy 15 copies for their teachers!
The great thing is that you understand this need and can work with your child on how to get the movement they need to stay focused. If you have a child that really needs to move you might check with the teacher to see if your child could keep a stress ball at the desk. Even though it wouldn’t be full body movement, simply squeezing that while in class might help.
This sounds really intriguing!! I would love to learn more about how to use this during our homeschool day to improve our focus. 🙂
I’ll be writing about this tomorrow!