Active breaks. An active strategy for developing them in primary schools

Abstract

The aim of this document is to report on an Active Breaks program, carried out in two primary school's classrooms of a semi-private school in La Rioja, with the participation of 52 students in the 5th and 6th grade of primary school, throughout the 2021-2022 school year. The program is comprised of 2 to 3 daily interventions with a duration of 10 minutes during the school day, based on a program of easy, popular and simple active games with two purposes: To increase the levels of Physical Activity (PA) as a health promoting element and to facilitate a method to energize the class in some moments when the usual activity slows down because students are tired, bored, lacking attention, or even they're too excited; and these activities will help us to reconnect students with the subject. The aim for this work is to present to our colleagues a teaching activity that is motivating and very easy to carry out, and to show, through the participants' own opinions, the positive results of it. It is about a personal experience, greatly valued by the students, with which we want to confirm, as the author says, that: "ten minutes of teaching activity are not lost, but fifty are gained". From the experience carried out, it can be concluded that the activity is well accepted by the students, and that it makes no less important contribution to the amount of daily PA, one of our main purposes.With this report, we are trying to make a small contribution to the promotion of physical activity and a call for attention not only to fellow teachers but also to the educational administration.