I am always trying to find natural ways to get my students moving around the room because of everything we know about how brains work (Brain Rules is one of my favorite books).
David Katz is my new hero, and I’ve just discovered that he has a series of videos for three-minute activity breaks here. This ABE for Fitness site is fun; the video on the home page explains why we should be doing it. Dr. Katz has a site called ABC for fitness, and there he has some suggestions for teachers.
I was thinking that I could combine one of the fitness videos with an ongoing MovieTalk, but it would be kind of like TPR, because I’d be asking the kids to actually move and follow the video. Katz commented that he asked adults in a committee to do a three-minute workout and that they came to life after that. It sure seems as though such an activity would be useful in the classroom as well!
Yeah. It’s summer!
MJ's Comprehensible Input 
Thanks, MJ! At last a workout I can do from the couch! 🙂
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Another fun site for getting your blood moving is the 5-a-day site. http://watch.5-a-day.tv/demo/flash/demo.php This is particularly great for French or Spanish classes as they have versions with the instructions in the TL with the words visible on the page in the TL and in English as the instructor gives the motions. There are 2 free demo videos in Each language. You can also use the original English versions which have no text on the screen. My kids LOVED the disco one last year. You can also pay to subscribe and get access to more 5 min videos as well as 5 2-min chill videos. Under the paid subscription, there is also a leadership feature to get kids to lead the videos (more kid involvement) and they can even create their own exercise sequence with a creative version of the video (I’m guessing just the music with no leader on the screen) and teach it to the class. That would be a great activity for more advanced students, For now I’m sticking with the freebees, but they are coming out with and individual classroom price, which I may eventually consider.
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This sounds like so much fun…I will have to see whether I can mute it a bit and still use it!
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