Palm Tapping Energizing Brain Break

You will be tapping your opposite hand palm while keeping a pattern.
1. Stand up.
2. Put your hands in front of you so that your fingers are pointing straight forward and your palms are facing up.
3. You will be repeating a tapping pattern: two taps, three taps, one tap over and over while you alternate hands.
4. Take your ring finger on your left hand and tap twice on your right palm. Now take your pinkie finger on your right hand and tap three times on your left palm. Again take your left ring finger and tap once on your right palm. Now we start the pattern again and take the right pinkie and tap two times on the left palm. And so on…
5. Sometimes it is helpful to say the words out loud.
6. Try to do this as fast as possible keeping the same pattern.
7. If you master this then pick different fingers for each hand.
Be creative with your patterns. Use a pattern like 2,3,1,3,2 taps

Hand Shake # 1 that is a BRAIN BREAK

Brain Breaks are great to re-engergize your students


You will be doing a lengthy handshake with your partner.



1. Stand up and find a partner. Decide who is A and who is B.

2. Shake right hands. Shake left hands.

3. Now do a right hand fist bump, and then a left hand fist bump. (A fist bump is making a fist, and lightly touching finger sections that are closest to the wrist)

4. Now do a right hand hammer tap. Person A will put their right fist out. Person B will lightly tap A with the bottom of their fist. Now Person A will lightly touch the bottom of their fist to person B’s fist. Now do a left hand hammer tap.

5. Now while crossing your arms do a high ten.

6. Now do a double fist bump. (Opposite hands will be touching)

7. Lastly do a regular high ten.

8. Repeat this handshake over and over as fast as you can.



Be creative and make up your own handshake.

I Bet You Can't Do This!

Here are three activities that most people can’t do. All of these are done from a standing position. Students enjoy trying to do them. About 1 in 10 can do these.


Put your arm out in front of you with your index finger extended. Try to spin your wrist slowly in one direction and your index finger in the opposite direction.



Roll your neck in one direction while at the same time moving your tongue around the inside of your lips in the other direction.



While spinning your right toe in a clockwise direction take your right hand index finger and draw the outline of a 6 in the air.



Thanks to Rory Lynch for this idea!