Back-of-the-envelope estimate5 minutes. No phones and no calculators: estimate how many sheets of paper this school uses in a year. Write down every guess you make on the way: students, classes a day, sheets per class, school days. Compare your working with a neighbor. There is no answer key, and the working is the point.
Ankle alphabet1 minute. Stay seated and lift one foot off the floor. Write your first name in the air with your toes, in capital letters as big as you can make them. Swap feet and write your last name.
Chair-back stretch1 minute. Stand behind your chair with both hands on the top of it. Walk your feet back until your arms and back make one flat line, with your head between your arms. Stay for 3 slow breaths, walk back in and do it once more.
Hands behind your back30 seconds. Stand up and clasp your hands behind your back. Straighten your arms and lift them a little way from your body, looking straight ahead. Hold for a count of 10, let go, and do it twice more.
Neck tilt1 minute. Sit tall and let your right ear sink toward your right shoulder, keeping the shoulder down. Hold for a count of 10, come back to the middle and do the left side. Finish with your chin toward your chest for a count of 10. Go only as far as is comfortable.
One-minute desk stretch1 minute. Stay in your seat. Lace your fingers, push your palms toward the ceiling and hold for a count of 10. Let go, roll both shoulders back 5 times and look slowly over each shoulder. Finish by shaking out your hands.
Seated twist1 minute. Sit tall with both feet flat on the floor. Put your right hand on the back of your chair and turn to look over your right shoulder for 3 slow breaths. Come back to the front and do the left side. Twice each way.
Shoulder blade squeeze30 seconds. Sit or stand tall with your arms by your sides. Pull your shoulder blades toward each other as if you were holding a pencil between them. Hold for a count of 5 and let go. Do it 5 times.
Wrist and finger reset1 minute. Hold one arm straight out, palm up, and use the other hand to ease the fingers down toward the floor for a count of 10. Turn the palm down and do the same. Swap arms, then let both hands hang and shake them loose. It suits the end of a long stretch of typing or note-taking.
Up and walking 8
Chair hover1 minute. Stand in front of your chair. Lower yourself slowly until you are just above the seat, hover for a count of 3 and stand back up. Do 10. On the last one, sit down as slowly as you can.
Desk gallery5 minutes. On scrap paper, everyone writes the one idea from today they would put on a test and leaves it face up on the desk. Stand and walk the room in silence, reading as many desks as you can. Back at your seat, put a star on your paper if you saw the same idea on 3 other desks.
Far wall and back2 minutes. Stand, push in your chair and walk to the wall farthest from your seat without talking. While you are there, find 3 things in the room you have never noticed before. Walk back the long way around. Anyone who needs to fill a water bottle does it now.
Lap and swap3 minutes. Everyone stands, pushes in their chair and walks one lap of the room in the same direction. On the second lap, sit in any seat but your own and tell your new neighbor one thing you remember from the first half of class. A third lap takes everyone back to their own seat.
Opinion line3 minutes. Name one wall Agree and the opposite wall Disagree. Read out a statement with no right answer, such as the book is always better than the movie, or homework should be optional. Everyone stands somewhere along the line between the walls, and 2 people from different spots say why they chose theirs.
Question toss5 minutes. Write one question about today's lesson on scrap paper and scrunch it into a ball. On the signal, lob it underhand toward the front of the room. Pick up the ball nearest to you, take it back to your seat and write an answer on it. The teacher reads out 2 or 3.
Say one and sit3 minutes. Everyone stands. Go up and down the rows: each person names one fact, term or name from this unit that nobody has said yet, then sits. Anyone may say pass once and gets another turn after the last row.
Walk and talk3 minutes. Pair up with the person beside you and walk slow laps of the room side by side. For the first half, one partner talks about the hardest part of today's lesson so far while the other only listens. Swap when the teacher calls halfway.
With a partner 9
Back to the board5 minutes. One partner sits with their back to the board. The teacher writes a term from this unit on it. The partner who can see it gives clues without saying the word or any part of it, and the first pair to get it raises a hand. Swap seats after each term and play 5 terms.
Blind contour portrait2 minutes. Face a partner. Both of you draw the other's face for 60 seconds without looking down at the paper or lifting the pencil. Show each other, then use the time left to add hair and a signature with your eyes on the page. Every portrait comes out strange, so nobody's is the bad one.
One, two, three, clap2 minutes. Face a partner and count 1, 2, 3 over and over, taking turns to say one number each. After 30 seconds, swap every 1 for a clap. Then swap every 2 for a finger snap, and last every 3 for a tap on the desk. It falls apart quickly, and that is the fun of it.
Quiz me from my notes3 minutes. Swap notebooks with a partner. Ask them 3 questions taken straight from their own notes for today, and they answer without looking. Swap jobs. Any question missed gets a star in the margin of the notes it came from.
SOS5 minutes. In pairs, draw a grid of 5 rows and 5 columns. On your turn, write an S or an O in any empty square. Finish S-O-S in a straight line, across, down or diagonal, and you score a point and go again. When the grid is full, the most points wins.
Three-question interview3 minutes. Ask your partner these 3 questions and listen to each whole answer: what are you looking forward to, what is taking up most of your time, and what are you good at that school never sees. Swap after 90 seconds. Nothing gets shared with the class.
Turn and talk: best thing this week2 minutes. Turn to the person next to you. One of you talks for 45 seconds about the best thing that has happened this week, however small, and the other listens without cutting in. Swap when the teacher calls it. Nobody reports back to the class, so the stakes stay low.
Turn and talk: muddiest point2 minutes. Tell your partner the one part of today's lesson that is least clear to you. Your partner gets 30 seconds to try to clear it up, then you swap. If neither of you can, write the question on scrap paper and hand it in.
Turn and talk: teach it back2 minutes. Partner A has 45 seconds to explain the last thing taught, as if Partner B had missed class. B then names one thing A left out, or one thing B is still unsure of. Swap jobs if there is time.
Pencil and paper 15
Back-of-the-envelope estimate5 minutes. No phones and no calculators: estimate how many sheets of paper this school uses in a year. Write down every guess you make on the way: students, classes a day, sheets per class, school days. Compare your working with a neighbor. There is no answer key, and the working is the point.
Blank page recall2 minutes. Close your notebook and your laptop. On scrap paper, write down everything you can remember from class since the bell, in any order, without stopping. When the timer ends, open your notes and add what you missed in the margin.
Five lines to future me5 minutes. Write 5 lines to yourself on the last day of this semester: what you hope is finished, what you hope you kept doing, what you hope you stopped worrying about. Fold the page and put your name on the outside. Keep it in your binder, or hand it in to get back in the last week.
Headline it2 minutes. Write a newspaper headline of 8 words or fewer for what the class has just covered. Then write a second one the way a gossip site would put it. Pass both to a neighbor, who circles the one they would click on.
Lesson haiku3 minutes. Write a haiku about today's lesson in the form most schools teach: 3 lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. Count on your fingers. Swap with a neighbor, who checks the count and hands it back.
Magic square5 minutes. Draw a grid of 3 rows and 3 columns. Place the numbers 1 to 9 in it, once each, so that every row, every column and both diagonals add up to 15. One hint: the 5 goes in the middle. There is only one answer, and turning or flipping it gives the 8 ways it can look.
Message to someone who was out2 minutes. Someone missed class today. On scrap paper, write the message you would send them: what we did, in 3 sentences, and the one thing they cannot skip. Write it so the teacher could read it too.
Scramble a term3 minutes. Pick a term of 7 letters or more from this unit and scramble its letters. Write the scramble on scrap paper with a one-line clue under it. Swap with a neighbor and unscramble theirs. Check your spelling first, or nobody can solve it.
Six-word summary2 minutes. Sum up today's lesson so far in exactly 6 words. Not 5 and not 7. Write it on scrap paper, swap with a neighbor and underline their strongest word. Volunteers read theirs out.
Sketch the idea3 minutes. No words and no numbers: draw the main idea of today's lesson as a diagram, a cartoon or a map. Swap with a neighbor, who writes a one-line caption under it. Stick figures are fine.
Wall memory test2 minutes. Study the front wall of the room for 30 seconds. Turn your chair to face the back and list everything you can remember seeing: posters, dates, the color of the clock. Turn around and score 1 point for each thing you got right.
What am I, in three clues5 minutes. Pick a term, a person or a place from this unit and write a riddle about it in 3 clues, hardest clue first, ending with What am I. Swap with a neighbor and solve theirs. Hand in the good ones: each can open a class as the riddle of the day.
Word ladder: COLD to WARM3 minutes. Turn COLD into WARM by changing one letter at a time, with a real word at every step. It takes 4 changes and there is more than one route: try going through CORD. Finished early? Write a ladder of your own for a neighbor to solve.
Word ladder: HEAD to TAIL3 minutes. Lewis Carroll invented the word ladder, and this one is his: turn HEAD into TAIL by changing one letter at a time, with a real word at every step. His answer takes 5 changes and starts HEAD, HEAL. No phones.
Write a test question3 minutes. Write one question you think belongs on the next test, with the answer under it. Make it one that needs a sentence, not a single word. Pass it to the front when the timer ends. The pile is ready-made review for another day.
How it works
These brain breaks for high school run 30 seconds to 5 minutes, for ages 14 to 18. Nobody dances or sings, and close to half put today's lesson to work. Pick another brain break brings the next.
Read the full guide
Sort high school brain breaks by the day you are having
The menu that reads All brain breaks sorts by setup, from Stretch at your desk to Pencil and paper. Silent, for test days marks 23 that need no talking once you have read the line out.
5 minute brain breaks for high school block periods
Fills 5 minutes marks the 8 longest, among them SOS, Magic square and Question toss, for the midpoint of a long block. Whichever comes up, the timer over it is already at 5 minutes: press it.
Offer a standing opt-out: anyone may do One-minute desk stretch in place of the pick, no reason asked.
For a substitute, choose Silent, for test days: every break is listed under the tool.
Magic square has one answer, and a quick student may find it fast. Keep printable sudoku sheets ready.
Questions and answers
Do brain breaks for high school students cost lesson time?
Less than it looks. Close to half are review with a clock on it: Blank page recall, Quiz me from my notes, Write a test question. The class stands, talks or writes for 2 or 3 minutes, and you find out what stuck.
Which are fun brain breaks for high school, with no review attached?
SOS, One, two, three, clap, Blind contour portrait, Opinion line and the two word ladders have nothing to do with the unit. Both ladders were checked: COLD to WARM takes 4 changes, and Lewis Carroll's own HEAD to TAIL takes 5.
Can high schoolers run a brain break themselves?
Yes. Hand over the keyboard: the space bar brings up the next pick, and the student reads it out and presses the timer. Opinion line and Back to the board need someone at the front, and it does not have to be you.