Brain Breaks Part 11: PIKACHU

So, today is Senior Leadership Day at my school. Each Senior gets to choose a teacher who they will “be” for the entire day. They plan for all of our classes and teach each one, they give assessments, grade those assessments, and do all of our duties for the day. My student’s name is Noemi. I told her to make ONE presentation that she can use for all six of my classes and I’ve told her she will vary her language for each class rather than trying to prepare a different lesson for each…. I love that my students are getting the opportunity to HEAR a Native accent.

She was SO nervous to start but I encouraged her to just have fun and maybe introduce a couple of games to the kids. Once she saw them laughing and smiling she loosened up and I could see was starting to have fun. 🙂

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The first game she introduced us to is called Pikachu. It is like a hand-jive brain break and rock paper scissors brain break in ONE! 🙂

Students do this with a partner so immediately I know there are a million ways to “do” this and make it novel. These will be my commands for using this Brain Break in novel ways:

  • Stand up do Pikachu with the person next to you
  • Stand up and do Pikachu with 5 different people in class (any # obviously)
  • Stand up and get in two lines (they do it with the person across from them)
  • Stand up form a circle and do it with the person to the left then to the right

Here is a video of how to do it:

They loved it!

YOU SAY:

PI-KA-CHU

Piko arriba

Piko abajo

Piko al lado

Piko al otro

PI-KA-CHU

PI-KA-CHU

Here is a video of my whole class doing it:

Yay! There you have it! THANK YOU to Noemi for teaching me this new Brain Break and thank you for teaching my classes so I could write this!

Until next time,

HAPPY TEACHING!

Love,

La Maestra Loca + NOEMI

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8 Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing Pikachu in your Comprehensible Online presentation “Brain Breaks 2.0”! I always need a few new ones for my repertoire. It is so helpful to see your students doing the brain breaks! Sometimes I show videos of your students to my high school students as a model. Today we had a chat in Spanish about where you teach because students were curious. We also talked about how much energy you have and the connection to your nickname 🙂 Students wanted to know if we’re friends and I told them we’re colleagues who see each other at conferences. You present but I don’t present yet. It’s amazing how the most mundane things can hold the students’ interest. (Gauged by their body language and the follow-up questions and comments.) They want to know about me and other Spanish teachers – imagine that!

    On Pikachu: my students know and can easily say “arriba” and “abajo” which made Pikachu go smoothly for them (not that I care about output; I do want them to breeze through brain breaks to get that brain and body reset). But they have not had as much exposure to “al lado.” Soon we’ll watch Sr. Wooly’s “Guapo” so they’ll pick up “a mi lado” and “a tu lado”.

    Thanks again. I’m adding “Pikachu” to my brain breaks poster list right now…

    1. Awesome awesome awesome! Yes, I remember when I met you… we have a LOT in common… 🙂 Tell your kiddos I say HEYYYYYYYYY! HOLA!!!!! Qué onda!?!?!?!?

      Thanks for all the feedback. What a great way to circle back to “al lado” for the…. love love love it

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