Moving for Math

At the beginning of every school year, I always ask my students to share their concerns for the upcoming year.  Without a doubt, many students share that they are worried about fourth grade math.

Perhaps this is because they have struggled with a math concept in the past, they don't have automatic recall of their math facts, or they have an older brother or sister who has scared them about how difficult it is to do long division and add fractions. (That never happens, I'm sure....)

To help change this feeling,  I am trying to put a fun twist on math time that can serve as a good transition activity and brain break as well.

Now, we begin each math class with by Moving for Math!

What is Moving for Math?

It is a short (3ish minutes) of stretching, breathing, and cardio.

We always begin by stretching out:

We stretch our arms, our wrists, our legs...

Then after a good stretch, we hit the cardio to help get some fresh oxygen to our brains and activate more thinking. Usually, this consists of jumping jacks or running in place.  If we do jumping jacks, we count off by multiples of a certain number (to work in a little extra math :).

After a few minutes (once everyone is thoroughly woken up and ready to think), we take a few deep breaths to re-center ourselves.  

Then...we are ready for math.

Moving for Math is fun brain break and a good way to incorporate more movement into our day.  If we are in a rush or I forget about it, the students are quick to complain or remind me.  They have made this short time for exercise a part of our math routine that they rely on.

What I really love is that it starts us out with a positive mindset toward math (especially if we are working on a concept that is new or difficult...long division!)

I find this activity to be a great way to motivate my students for math. I'm linking up with my friend Joanne's Spark Student Motivation linky.  I hope you'll head over to Joanne's blog to find other great ways to motivate your students!