I was fortunate enough to go Tech on the Tyne this year, the night before the organiser, Martin Bailey, runs a free teachmeet the night before; Talk on the Tyne. One of the speakers, Paul Tullock delivered a talk about GoNoodle and it had an amazing reaction! This made me think that more people could benefit from being aware of it and how to use it in the class.

GoNoodle is a series of web-based videos and activities focused on introducing short bursts of physical exercise in the classroom. For young children who need to burn up energy to concentrate on learning, this is a simple solution. The videos vary between 1 all the way up to 10+ minutes and everywhere in between.

Teachers choose a game that then walks students through introductions, warm-up routines, and the game itself. A tally in the dashboard section keeps track of the minutes of each activity, points gained, and medals won, which is a nice incentive for the class and a great way for teachers to share the activity summary with students.

Blazer Fresh

GoNoodle keeps track of the minutes and offers achievements that the kids love. As you reach the different levels, your “Classroom Champ” changes and grows from all the exercise the class is completing, the more challenges the faster the mascot levels up. Also, when one mascot is completely levelled up, you can move on to another. Children can also make accounts at home, which can be a fun way for them to keep motivated with physical activity and mindful behaviours over the weekends, out of school and holidays.

GoNoodle does require teachers to create an account, but there is no cost to set up or use the service. You can choose from Yoga, Zumba, and Olympic sports or simply dance to popular songs that are perfect for young kids. There are many choices for the class to pick from, and they continue to add new options all the time. The favourites in my classroom are Fresh Start Fitness and Koo Koo Kanga Roo!

Koo Koo Kanga RooWays to use GoNoodle in the Classroom:

  • Brain Breaks- we have high expectations of our children and the output of work we expect them to produce. Why not have a 2 minute brain break to encourage further work. Also, this could be a nice, happy start the morning.
  • Wet Play- the children in my class are quite active and on a wet day they tend to get a bit of cabin fever but this is soon remedied with a nice 5 minute GoNoodle video. They even have special 10+ minute videos for wet plays.
  • Mindfulness- the central theme of mindfulness is to keep your mind on the present. Any GoNoodle activity will address this in some way but there are specialist videos for this too.
  • After break to focus- this is a great way to get your class focused, seated where you want them in a nice positive way. This could also be used during transitions to different subject places or changing from teaching one subject to another.
  • As a reward- this could be a positive way to promote behaviour in your class.

I hope your class enjoys GoNoodle as much as mine does, let me know how you get on by commenting below!

Thanks

Adam Chase (@_geekyteacher)