6 of the Best YouTube Brain Breaks That Your Students Will LOVE

As an educator, you know how important it is to keep your students on task, engaged, energized, and having fun throughout the school day. Of course your classroom lessons are crucial, but it’s equally as important to ensure your students are giving their brains and bodies a break throughout the day. By incorporating short, fun brain breaks into your routine, your students will be able to relieve stress, refocus, and have fun! This sets them up for a more positive rest of the day. In this blog post, I’m sharing 6 of the best YouTube brain breaks that your students will absolutely LOVE (that you may have never heard of before!). 

Why Brain Breaks Are Important

Before we dive into these fun YouTube brain breaks, it’s first important to understand WHY they are so essential to the daily classroom routine. 

Enhanced Focus

Short, well-timed brain breaks can help students refocus and maintain their attention during the school day. Just think about how you feel after working on a project, focusing hard, and using your brain for a long period of time. You may feel tired, restless, and a bit antsy. Kids are the same way! Getting up, taking a break, and giving your body and brain time to relax and re-energize can help you come back stronger and ready to learn!

Stress Reduction

Brain breaks provide students with an opportunity to relax and unwind, which can greatly reduce their stress and anxiety. It’s always a good idea to give students a brain break after an assessment or a challenging lesson before moving on to the next thing. 

Physical Activity and Coordination

Many brain breaks involve physical activity and elements of coordination, which is key for children’s health and development. Brain breaks can help them get active, work on gross motor skills, and aid in healthy habits. 

Creativity and Imagination

Brain breaks also give students a chance to use their imagination and creativity, whether that is through movement, singing, or thinking outside of the box.

How to Remove Ads From a YouTube Video

While you may have used and loved brain break websites such as GoNoodle in the past, YouTube offers a great variety of kid-friendly brain break channels this day in age. However, if the thought of waiting on pesky (or possibly inappropriate) ads on YouTube with a classroom full of students sends you into a tailspin, don’t worry! You can easily remove the ads from these YouTube brain breaks with a few different options. 

Ad-Blocking Software

One option to remove ads from a YouTube video is to use browser extensions or an ad-blocking software that automatically skips ads on Youtube. 

YouTube Premium

If you use YouTube frequently, you can consider subscribing to YouTube Premium, which removes ads and offers additional features, such as offline viewing. If your school uses YouTube, you can check to see if they have the YouTube Premium subscription set up. 

Playlist Creation

Creating playlists of your favorite brain breaks in advance is a great way to skip ads if you queue up the videos back to back. Plus, this saves you time from searching for a brain break when your students so desperately need it!

A Simple URL Hack

Lastly, there is a very simple URL hack that you can use to remove the ads from a YouTube video. I’m going to use one of my own YouTube videos, as an example. 

When you click on a YouTube video, the URL will look something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uraw3apHQI. 

To remove the ads from the video, simply type a dash “-” between the letters “t” and “u” in YouTube. 

After doing this, the URL looks like this: https://www.yout-ube.com/watch?v=1uraw3apHQI.

Copy and paste the new link into a new tab and the video will play in its own frame, without ads! How cool is that?!

6 of the Best YouTube Brain Breaks

#1: Coach Corey Martin – @CoachCoreyMartin

Coach Corey Martin’s YouTube brain break channel is jam-packed with high-energy exercises and workouts that are perfect for quick brain breaks with your students. His approach is fun and dynamic, which gets your students up, moving, and re-energized in no time! You’ll find everything from exciting chases and adventures to freeze dance songs, jump battles, and more!

#2: Cosmic Kids Yoga – @CosmicKidsYoga

Cosmic Kids Yoga is a great way to help students practice yoga and mindfulness in a kid-friendly, fun way. Students will use their imagination while also combining physical activity and storytelling to promote relaxation and focus. You’ll even find fun-themed videos, such as Frozen Yoga and Minions Yoga!

#3: UJU Videos – @UJUvideos

UJU Videos offers a ton of educational and entertaining content with a variety of videos to choose from. There’s science experiments, art projects, fascinating facts, and great “would you rather” videos to captivate your students’ attention. This channel is created by 4 professional teachers who are committed to promoting the physical and mental well-being of students.

#4: KooKoo Kangaroo – @koo_koo

You probably already know and love these guys… the guys of KooKoo Kangaroo! KooKoo Kangaroo creates entertaining, catchy, and sometimes hilarious music videos with sing and dance-along routines that students absolutely love! It’s a perfect choice for students who enjoy music and movement during their brain breaks. Your students are sure to leave feeling refreshed, re-energized, and laughing the whole time!

#5: Brain Games and Puzzles – @braingamespuzzles

If you’re looking for a more relaxing, mindful brain break, Brain Games and Puzzles offers a collection of mind-bending puzzles and riddles that will challenge your students’ critical thinking skills. These brain breaks can be a great way to warm students’ brains up at the beginning of the day or before an afternoon of learning. 

#6: Kidz Bop – @kidzbop

This list of the 6 best YouTube brain breaks wouldn’t be complete without Kidz Bop! This brain break channel has a ton of kid-friendly versions of popular songs. This makes the classroom environment fun and lively as your students sing and dance along. This can be a great stress relief for students as they just express themselves to the beat.

I hope you got some new ideas for YouTube brain breaks to try out with your class! Incorporating brain breaks throughout your day will not only benefit your students, but it will make the learning environment that much more fun, welcoming, and exciting.

If you’re looking for more ways to integrate movement into your daily routine, check out this blog post with 5 fun ideas!

I’d love to know what some of your best brain break ideas are. Leave me a comment below and let me know!