• 31 brain breaks
  • Checked October 2026

Spring Brain Breaks

One spring activity to read aloud and do, from umbrellas in the wind to paper nests.

Spring Brain Breaks

Show all 31
  1. Sun out, sun in1 minute. Everyone is a flower with arms open wide. When the teacher holds a book overhead as a cloud, the flowers close: arms fold in and heads bow. When the book comes down, the sun is out and the flowers open. The cloud comes and goes faster each time.

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All 31 brain breaks

Rain and wind 7

  • Fill the rain barrel 1 minute. Crouch down low. You are an empty rain barrel. Each time the teacher snaps, a drop falls in and you rise a little. When you are full, up on tiptoe with your arms high, the water spills over: wobble all the way back down.
  • Mind the worms 2 minutes. After rain, worms cover the path. Lay 8 pencils across an aisle, spaced unevenly. Walk the aisle on tiptoe, there and back, stepping over every worm without touching one. The second time, carry a book flat on one hand.
  • Open every window 1 minute. Four heavy windows are stuck shut, one on each side of you. Face the first, bend your knees, hook your fingers under the frame and push it up over your head. Turn to the next wall and open that one. When all four are open, stand in the breeze for 5 counts.
  • Rain, shine, wind 2 minutes. The teacher calls the weather, and the class shows it. For rain, crouch under your hands, and for shine, stand with your arms wide and your face up. For wind, lean to one side with your arms streaming. The calls come faster, and sometimes two come together.
  • The stream gets wider 3 minutes. Lay two rulers on the floor a hand apart, as the banks of a stream. Take turns jumping across and landing on two feet. When everyone has jumped, the teacher moves one ruler a little further away. Jump until the stream is too wide to cross with dry feet.
  • Sun out, sun in 1 minute. Everyone is a flower with arms open wide. When the teacher holds a book overhead as a cloud, the flowers close: arms fold in and heads bow. When the book comes down, the sun is out and the flowers open. The cloud comes and goes faster each time.
  • Umbrella in the wind 1 minute. Open a pretend umbrella and hold it with both hands. The teacher is the wind and points the way it blows: lean into it and keep your feet still. A gust from behind turns the umbrella inside out, so pull it back with one big tug. When the wind drops, shake it dry and fold it.

In the garden 5

  • Bean pole 1 minute. One partner is the pole and stands tall with one arm straight up. The other is the bean plant: start crouched at the foot of the pole and walk around it in a slow circle, rising a little with every step, one hand winding upward. Reach the top after three circles. Swap.
  • Finger sprout 30 seconds. Make a fist with one hand: that is the soil. Push one finger of the other hand slowly up through the fist from below until it pokes out at the top. Spread that whole hand open as a flower. Swap hands, and grow this one even more slowly.
  • Spring like a spring 30 seconds. A spring is also a coil of wire. Crouch as a spring pressed flat under the teacher's hand. When the hand lifts, bounce up with one big jump and keep bouncing, each bounce smaller than the last, until you are still. Three times.
  • Sun and water 2 minutes. Crouch down as a seed. The teacher holds up one hand for sun or two hands for water. You grow one step taller only when you have had both since the last time you grew, so two suns in a row do nothing. Five steps take you from seed to full bloom.
  • Sunflower follows the sun 1 minute. The teacher is the sun and walks slowly from one side of the room to the other. Every sunflower stands with its feet planted and turns so that its face always points at the sun. Arms are leaves and stay open. When the sun sets behind the desk, the flowers droop.

Spring animals 6

  • Bird watcher 2 minutes. Curl your hands into binoculars. The teacher describes a bird that is really something in the room: it is yellow, smaller than a shoe, and it perches near the window. Search with your binoculars without leaving your seat, and point when you have found it. Whoever points first describes the next bird.
  • Butterfly landing 1 minute. Open and close your arms slowly as wings. Step to a spot nearby, a flower, and land on it on one foot with your wings still for 5 counts. Fly to 3 flowers, landing on the other foot each time. On the last flower, fold your wings behind your back.
  • Feed the nest 2 minutes. Half the class crouches as chicks in a nest, heads down. The other half are parent birds and walk around the room. When a parent taps a chick on the shoulder, the chick pops up, flaps twice and crouches again. After a minute, swap.
  • Lamb leaps 30 seconds. Jump like a lamb in a spring field. Stand beside your desk, jump and tuck both feet up under you, and land softly with bent knees. Do 5 leaps, with a count of 3 between them. Make the last one a quarter turn in the air.
  • Robin and worm 1 minute. Face a partner. One is the robin and one is the ground, and each holds an end of a pretend worm. The robin leans back and pulls for 5 counts while the ground holds on. Then the ground lets go, and both take one soft step back. Swap.
  • Tadpole to frog 2 minutes. A frog tadpole grows its back legs first and its front legs second, and then its tail shrinks away. Start as a tadpole and wiggle on the spot with your arms by your sides. On back legs, add small jumps, and on front legs, bring your arms out. Shake off the tail and do 3 frog jumps.

Easter eggs and bunnies 5

  • Bunny ears up 1 minute. Hop on the spot with your feet together and your hands in front of your chest as paws. When the teacher claps, stop: your hands shoot up as two tall ears, and you listen without moving. On the next clap, hop on. The gaps between claps get shorter.
  • Decorate the egg 3 minutes. Draw an egg that fills half a sheet of scrap paper. Divide it into 5 bands with lines across. Fill each band with a different pattern: zigzags, dots, waves, stripes, checks. No two bands next to each other may look alike.
  • Egg hunt with your eyes 2 minutes. Before the break, the teacher puts 8 paper eggs in plain sight around the room: on a shelf, beside the clock, on a chair leg. Everyone stays seated and hunts with eyes only. Count how many you can find and show the number on your fingers. Then point them out one at a time.
  • Roll the egg home 2 minutes. Scrunch a scrap of paper into an egg. Draw a nest the size of your palm at one end of a sheet of paper on your desk and put the egg at the other end of the desk. Push the egg with the tip of a pencil, one tap at a time, until it stops inside the nest. Count your taps, then try to beat them.
  • Wobbling egg 30 seconds. Stand with your feet together and your arms wrapped around yourself: you are an egg standing on its end. Rock gently in a circle, forward, side, back, side, without moving your feet. When the teacher says crack, one elbow pokes out. On the third crack, both arms burst free.

Pencil and paper 8

  • Bee line 3 minutes. Draw 6 flowers spread around a sheet of scrap paper and a hive in one corner. A bee leaves the hive, visits every flower once and flies home. Draw its path without lifting your pencil and without crossing your own line. Then swap sheets and look for a shorter path through your neighbor's garden.
  • Draw a honeycomb 3 minutes. Honey bees build honeycomb out of six-sided cells. Draw one six-sided cell in the middle of your paper. Add a cell on each of its 6 sides, sharing a wall each time. Seven cells make a flower shape, and you can keep adding until the teacher says stop.
  • Fold a tulip 2 minutes. Start with a square of scrap paper. Fold it corner to corner into a triangle and turn it so that the long edge is at the bottom. Fold the two bottom corners up and a little outward, so that they stand up beside the top point as petals. Lay it on a sheet of paper and draw a stem and two leaves under it.
  • Plant the garden bed 3 minutes. Draw a garden bed of 3 by 3 squares. Plant 3 carrots, 3 beans and 3 onions, one letter to a square. No row and no column may hold the same plant twice. There is more than one way, so find two.
  • Raindrops down the window 3 minutes. Draw a window frame on scrap paper. Put 6 raindrops along the top. From each drop, draw a wobbly path all the way to the bottom of the glass. No path may touch another, so the last ones need planning.
  • Seed packet 5 minutes. Invent a plant that does not exist and design the front of its seed packet on scrap paper. Give it a name, draw what it grows into and write one line about when to plant it. On the back, write what it needs. Swap with a neighbor and say which seeds you would buy.
  • Split the spots 2 minutes. Draw a ladybug: a circle with a line down the middle. A neighbor says a number from 4 to 12. Draw that many spots, some on each wing, then draw a second ladybug that splits the same number another way. Swap jobs.
  • Twist a paper nest 3 minutes. Tear a sheet of scrap paper into 6 long strips. Twist each strip so that it holds its shape, then wind the strips together into a ring and tuck the ends in. Scrunch 3 small paper eggs. Lift the nest and see whether it holds them.

How it works

These spring brain breaks are activities to read aloud and do, with no video to follow. The 31 cover rain and wind, the garden, spring animals and Easter eggs, and 9 are for pencil and paper.

Read the full guide

The Easter brain breaks

Easter eggs and bunnies holds 5, all about eggs, nests and rabbits and none about the religious holiday. Wobbling egg and Bunny ears up are done on the spot. Egg hunt with your eyes needs 8 paper eggs put out beforehand, and Roll the egg home and Decorate the egg are desk jobs.

Spring brain breaks for kids on a wet day

Rain and wind holds 7. In Sun out, sun in, the teacher's book is a cloud and the class opens and closes like flowers. In The stream gets wider, two rulers on the floor are the banks, and one moves after every round of jumps.

  • Sun and water rewards listening: a seed grows only after one sun and one water, so call two suns in a row early.

Questions and answers

What is a good Easter brain break without candy?

Any of the 5 in the Easter group. Wobbling egg is a balance, Bunny ears up is a hop that stops on a clap, and Roll the egg home is a paper egg tapped across a desk with a pencil. None uses food.

Are these Easter themed brain breaks religious?

No. They are about eggs, nests and rabbits, the parts of the season a mixed class shares. A room that does not keep Easter can use the other 26, which never mention it.

Which spring brain breaks need no space?

The 9 for pencil and paper, such as Raindrops down the window, Plant the garden bed and Bee line, and two more done at the desk: Finger sprout and Roll the egg home.

Is there a spring brain break printable?

Not as a separate file: the whole list is on this page under the tool, in five groups. For cards to cut out, the brain break cards print 12 to a sheet, though they are not spring ones.

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