American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance - AAHPERD

Quick Cardio Breaks for Testing Time

As schools approach the academic testing season, teachers focus on creating the optimal testing environment. Encouraging students to get enough sleep and eat healthy food are certainly part of the equation, but don't forget a healthy dose of exercise to boost student attention during testing time.

Studies show that 15-20 minute bouts of cardiovascular activity contribute to increased attention when students return to the classroom. Share these 10 quick cardio breaks ideas with classroom teachers for a beneficial 15-20 minute boost to success! Cardio work with a training partner can make activity fun, social, and supportive-kids should be able to talk but not sing and training partners can challenge each other.

1. Power Walkabout - Inside through the halls or outside, power-walking can be great fun when you add additional tasks. Brisk walking will raise your heart rate-but moving your arms will really turn it up! Try spelling your name with your arms; swinging the arms; making small arm circles expanding to large arm circles; cross punching the arms; shaking the hands in patterns-your challenge is only as limited as your imagination. Make it more fun by singing, reciting poems or math facts, or creating rhymes. Change locomotor skills and skip or slide for a bigger cardio boost!
   
   
2. Environmental Intervals - Find places in your school or around school grounds where you can create varied short-burst cardio intervals, such as running up and down stairs, doing side jumps up and down along a curb; power-walking to a target area and sprinting back; aerobic step patterns on stairs, steps, or a safe curbed area. Create a student contest to design a challenge based on the terrain, put the ideas on cards and draw the cards for an unpredictable workout filled with fun.
   
   
3. Jump Rope Goals - Decide on the jump rope challenge that fits your talent and interest. Set a goal for maximum jumps in a row or time increments to jump and work toward it. Master selected jump rope tricks and chart your progress. String jump-rope intervals with other brief cardio bouts in two minute increments. Jumping can boost your physical fitness, and give back later when you are more attentive in class.
   
   
4. Frisbee Golf - Challenge students to play individual or partner Frisbee golf by identifying targets on the school grounds that they must throw to and hit with the Frisbee. Students run from point to point in an effort to gain the fewest throws and the quickest completion time. Create a scorecard, or give students a blank scorecard for creating their own targets. Working indoors? Use a beanbag!
   
   
5. Prop Dance Cardio - Direct students to select a piece of equipment or another prop of their choice (ribbon, shoebox, balloon), and create a dance to music using the prop. Movement patterns should repeat and create a dance that can be performed to music. Ask students to write down the patterns so that they can learn their self-designed dance. This activity can be done individually or in a group.