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Student Well-Being & Movement Download

Activate the Classroom: Tips for Incorporating Movement (DOWNLOADABLE)

By Laura Baker — March 06, 2025 1 min read
Fifth grader Raigan Paquin works her way across the climbing wall during teacher Robyn Newton’s P.E. class at Vergennes Union Elementary School in Vergennes, Vt., on Nov. 18, 2024.
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Incorporating movement into the classroom is a powerful strategy to enhance student learning, behavior, and overall well-being. Since students spend a significant portion of their days in school, ÌÇÐ͝Âþvlog can help reduce the sedentary nature of classrooms and ensure that students aged 6 to 17 get the 60 minutes of movement needed daily for .

Research consistently shows that students. These breaks can range from quick exercises to interactive educational games. Physical , stress, and anxiety in non-stigmatizing ways.

Benefits of active breaks during the school day

Integrating physical activity with academic instruction can work to . Furthermore, studies indicate that increasing time for physical activity in the classroom—even when it replaces instruction—does not hinder and can even.

Few schools require regular activity breaks, but teachers can bring movement into the classroom

Schools play a crucial role in shaping lifelong habits, but across districts and states. Only a small percentage of school districts require regular activity breaks, particularly at the middle and high school levels.

Integrating activity takes understanding what safety and activity policies are in place at school. It takes significant effort and support to steer a school culture toward physically active classrooms, but such a shift can start with one educator and one classroom at a time.

These shareable guides—with tools from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Network of Public Health Institutes, as well as previous EdWeek reporting—provide practical strategies and activity ideas to help teachers incorporate movement into their classrooms. By integrating movement into daily instruction, ÌÇÐ͝Âþvlog can create more engaging and productive learning environments while helping students develop lifelong habits of physical activity.

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Students in Brooke Smith’s class dance as they participate in an exercise through the InPACT program during the school day at North Elementary School in Birch Run, Mich., on March 2, 2023.
Students in Brooke Smith’s class dance as they participate in an exercise through the InPACT program during the school day at North Elementary School in Birch Run, Mich., on March 2, 2023.
Emily Elconin for Education Week

    Gina Tomko, Art Director contributed to this article.

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