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What are some activities that I can do with students outside or during free time that can still be educational so the students are actively thinking throughout the day?

I have learned to do mostly creating models and testing them. Kids get really excited about creating and testing their ideas out. It's a hands on activity that gets the kids thinking, and learning while being outside. Example: bottle rockets.

I have learned to do mostly creating models and testing them. Kids get really excited about creating and testing their ideas out. It's a hands on activity that gets the kids thinking, and learning while being outside. Example: bottle rockets.

At the preschool level, all play especially interactive play is learning. All you need to do is create fun experiences. Children love to play with bubbles, catch bugs, draw with chalk, or even play some type of ball game. Each of these experiences are learning opportunities for the young children that you work with. Explore nature, go on a bug hunt, discuss the colors of the leaves during fall and what happens to them. There are endless experiments you can do with the children to engage them and get them learning. Indoors make play-dough with them, have a water table with sink/float objects, have magnets for them to experiment with, give them rulers or cube blocks to measure objects and compare sizes. There are plenty of things to do, once you begin teaching, find out what interests the kids and go from there. Good luck.

I would search for Brain Breaks. We started implementing them in our district this year and they have really been great especially with inside recess. They give you different activities that students can do to relax and refocus on what they are doing. I would just google or pinterest search for Brian Breaks.

I would search for Brain Breaks. We started implementing them in our district this year and they have really been great especially with inside recess. They give you different activities that students can do to relax and refocus on what they are doing. I would just google or pinterest search for Brian Breaks.

I will definitely google brain breaks, this sounds like the perfect way to relax the children and help them regain their focus.

I think it would be really fun if the weather is nice to go outside and have the kids play with bubbles. Have them see who can make the biggest bubble or who can come up with the most creative way to pop their bubble. Just fun things like that. You could also play with balloons and have the kids keep them up in the air without touching them with their hands or something like that!

A quick time filler is to have students pair up and have them play "Rock, Paper, Scissors" but with a math twist. The students will pick a number to show with their fingers. The teacher will pick if the students add, subtract, multiply, make fractions, etc. The student who says the correct number first wins.

My suggestion is to make the free time activities into games (best way to attract interest). For example, if you're reviewing a specific shape in class, you can ask your students to keep an eye open for that shape while outside. Make it into a game and see who can find the most interesting object that holds that shape by the end of free time. It is a simple activity but it can keep your students actively thinking while still enjoying their free time.

All these free time activities are great and sound educational. I will definitely look into brain breaks as I have recently been reading a lot about how it is important to allow students to have breaks and rest between lessons in order to let the brain processes and store the information they have just been given. Thank you for your post!