Brain Breaks - How to use Fluency & Fitness® • Tickled Pink in Primary

Did you know that Fluency & Fitness brain breaks can be used in multiple ways? I’m going to show you a variety of ways to use your Fluency & Fitness resources so you get the most bang for your buck!

What is Fluency & Fitness?

In case you’ve never heard of Fluency & Fitness, let’s first start by learning what it is. I created Fluency & Fitness years ago as a way to help students get up out of their seats to MOVE while still learning! I wanted to combine brain breaks with learning. Our school was very strict on making every moment count. I wanted to make sure that this brain break was also educational, therefore it didn’t take away from our instructional time. Students are loving the chance to get up and move and they don’t even realize their learning! 😉 This idea for my classroom has slowly grown into bundles for over 50 literacy and math skills and ranges from preK through 5 grade. Read below to see how you can help your students get their bodies and brains moving!

5 Ways to use Fluency & Fitness Brain Breaks

1. Slideshow

The most common way to use Fluency and Fitness brain breaks is as a slideshow. You do not have to have a smart board to play; a projector is all you need! You can simply project it onto your screen or just use your whiteboard. Teachers get to choose how fast/slow you click through the slides, but can add timers as well (see below).

Classroom Brain Break - Fluency & Fitness

This can be used during your literacy and math block, for morning meeting, transitions, inside recess, or simply just brain breaks any time your kiddos need to get some energy out!

Here’s a little preview of some Fluency & Fitness in action! Visit my YouTube page here to see more videos.

2. Literacy and Math Center Tubs
One way to use Fluency & Fitness for center time, is to print out the slides and throw them in a container. When students draw an exercise card, they can do the exercise 5 times or for 5 seconds. They can then keep the card and another student can have a turn. Keep playing until all cards are gone. You can decide if you want just the 1 student to do the exercise or all of the students in that group to get up for quick brain breaks.

Brain Breaks - Literacy and Math Center Tubs

I print 6 or 9 slides per page so they are smaller in size.

3. Ipads

Did you know that you can play Fluency & Fitness on your iPad. This could be helpful for individual student use, small groups, parent volunteers working with students in the hall, or if you have Apple TV and want to use the airplay option.

Directions to get Fluency & Fitness on your iPad:

Since the files are uploaded as .zip documents, you will need to download an app to unzip the folder on your iPad such as iZip. This app will extract the files from the folder, so you can open each file individually.
Make sure you have Powerpoint downloaded on your iPad as well. You will want to open the files in Powerpoint so they show up in the correct format.
Students can click the “play” button at the top of the Powerpoint file, to play the slideshow.

I made this tutorial to show you how to do this.

4. Computer Center or Home Use

You can use Fluency & Fitness again for centers if you have a computer station. Students could simply play the slideshow on their computer and do the exercises by their seat. It can also be used at home for brain breaks with your own little ones! My nephew asks to do Fluency & Fitness when I’m babysitting him! Right after breakfast, he was ready to learn. 🙂

5. Assessments

Sometimes doing assessments can be very time consuming and boring for your students. Now you can use Fluency & Fitness to test your student’s knowledge! Simply print out this FREE assessment sheet for each of your students. Instead of doing this whole group, students will do it individually at their seat. As you go through the slideshow, students will write the answer in the boxes. Here are a few examples: if the screen shows a math fact, students will write down the answer to the problem, if it shows a 10 frame, students could write down the number, if it shows a picture, students could write the beginning sound, etc. You can grab this FREE assessment sheet here!

Grab a bundle:

After many requests, I started making bigger bundles of Fluency and Fitness brain breaks so teachers can buy everything they’d use for their subject or grade level in 1 bundle. So far I have these BIG Bundles: PreK, Kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, Reading (K-2), Math (K-2), and my MEGA bundle. The MEGA bundle gives you ALL of my K-2 sets, bonus extras (see below) and any new sets I add to that bundle, you get for FREE!!!

MEGA Fluency & Fitness Bonuses

If you own the MEGA bundle, you get a few BONUS items! This Fluency and Fitness game gives your students some small group practice on skills and gives them a chance to get a small brain break if they land on a certain square.

Another MEGA bundle bonus, are these exercise flashcards. Anytime throughout the day that your students seem to be getting a bit silly, you can simply hold up a card and have them stop working and do the exercise.

The MEGA bundle also includes an EDITABLE version so you can make your own games!

I hope that you have discovered some new ways to use your Fluency & Fitness brain breaks with your students. It’s always nice to be able to buy 1 product and use it multiple ways!

2019 update

Due to the popularity of Fluency & Fitness, I created a subscription site for ALL of the K-2 videos. These videos are not downloadable like my previous sets, BUT you get SO much more by subscribing. No longer buy 1 skill at a time. You get access to ALL the K-2 content (over 800 videos) for a low monthly fee.

Another BONUS is that the new videos don’t need any special software, you can simply click play and you’re ready to go. The website has exclusive features such as 2x the exercises, music, animated kids, answers shown after the math facts, 2 timed versions, and exclusive skills not found anywhere else.

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Brain Breaks – How to use Fluency & Fitness®

5 Ways to use Fluency & Fitness Brain Breaks

2019 update

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