Abstract
Active breaks have received great attention both among teachers and researchers and are used by those who pursuit to take advantage of all its benefits. Because of these benefits, many teachers or schools have incorporated active breaks into their daily classroom routines. However, to the authors' knowledge, there is not any program aimed entirely at preschool age. Also, the type of activities proposed in these programs are mostly mechanic with low cognitive engagement while some authors argue that cognitively engaging physical activity is more beneficial for cognitive and academic performance than mechanic activities. For these reasons, this chapter proposes a new active break program aimed at preschool children. This program, entitled “Move Your Brain,” will be composed of physical activities with inherent cognitive demands to challenge the children's brains.
TopIntroduction
Despite the multiple benefits of physical activity, sedentarism is a worldwide problem that affects young populations and may result in a risk of childhood obesity. According to World Health Organisation (WHO, 2010), 84% of boys and 78% of girls do not meet the minimum daily physical activity recommended, which includes 60 min/day of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity. For that reason, some actions have been put into practice in the educational context, with the purpose of increasing the levels of physical activity among children. One of these actions is the so-called active breaks, which can be defined as short bouts (5-10 min) of physical activity included in the school schedule that offer pupils more time of physical activity without reducing their learning time (Martínez-López et al., 2018; Wilson et al., 2013).
Active breaks have received great attention both among teachers and researchers and are used by those who pursuit to take advantage of all its benefits. These benefits are not only physical but also psychological and cognitive. In this sense, some studies have shown a positive relationship between an active break program and better cognitive performance (Méndez-Giménez, 2020), since it positively influences different processes of childhood cognition in general (Chaddock et al., 2011; Howie et al., 2014), and attention and memory in particular (Contreras-Jordán et al., 2020; Ma et al., 2015; Mahar, 2011; Martínez-López et al., 2018; Rudasill et al., 2010). Furthermore, children’s behavior (Carlson et al., 2015) and academic performance (Pastor-Vicedo et al., 2019) improved significantly after developing an active break program.
In light of these results, many teachers and schools have included active breaks into their daily classroom routines. The birth of these programs took place two decades ago. For example, in 1999, the International Life Sciences Institute launched the Take10! Program, which combines ten minutes of physical activity through curriculum subjects of Elementary School. Currently, this program is being conducted in other countries such as China (Happy10), United Kingdom (Take10 UK), Brazil (Tire 10) and Chile (Take10-Chile!). Due to the lack of programs aimed at Secondary Education, it was created in 2011 the program called Take a break! in the United States. The included activities last between 1 and 5 minutes and should be used every 30-60 minutes every day. The Spanish government published the program entitled ¡Dame 10! which is similar to Take 10! This program consists of a series of physical activities related to curricular contents. Each session takes between 5 and 10 minutes. In this same country, another program was created in 2016, called Móvete15. Each session of this program lasts 15 minutes of moderate-vigorous intensity physical activity and activities are usually implemented with music.
In addition to these programs, many technologies resources have emerged in relation to active breaks. For example, GoNoodle, or Energizing Brain Breaks present a series of physical activities to perform within the school context. The main advantages of these resources are that they do not need preparation and extra material to perform. Both resources contain many videos to use at school context, related (or not) with curriculum subjects.
After reading all these programs in detail, two considerations must be done. On the one hand, although most programs include activities aimed at preschool children, there is not any program aimed exclusively at this educational stage. On the other hand, the nature of the activities proposed in these programs are mostly mechanic with low cognitive engagement (e.g., squads, jumps, aerobic exercise) based merely on the repetition of the action and oriented to endurance. Nevertheless, some authors argue that cognitively engaging physical activity (i.e., physical activity that is cognitively challenging, such as team games) is more beneficial for cognition than mechanic activities (Schmidt et al., 2015).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Cognitively Engaging Physical Activity: Physical activities in which cognitive functions play a key role.
Preschool Stage: It is an early childhood program in which children combine learning with play in a program run by professionally trained adults. Children are most commonly enrolled in preschool between the ages of three and five, though those as young as two can attend some schools.
Executive Functions: Set of cognitive processes that are necessary for the cognitive control of behavior: selecting and successfully monitoring behaviors that facilitate the attainment of chosen goals.
Active Break: Short bouts (5-15 min) of physical activity included in the school schedule that offer pupils more time of physical activity without reducing their learning time.
Curricular Areas: The learning sections in which the curriculum is divided.
Physical Activity: Any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that require energy expenditure.
Attention: Behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information.