Too cold to play outside? How one company is reinventing recess
The GoNoodle website provided teachers and classroom-chained children a series of short videos that encourage kids to get up and move with the ultimate goal of improving attention spans and class behavior.
The GoNoodle website provided teachers and classroom-chained children a series of short videos that encourage kids to get up and move with the ultimate goal of improving attention spans and class behavior.
An education website that features 鈥渋ndoor recess mashups鈥� is seeing an increase in traffic as more children are stuck in classrooms during winter weather.
GoNoodle鈥檚 CEO, Scott McQuigg says that his site has seen a 20 percent increase in usage for the month of January which he attributes to cold weather across the country.
GoNoodle, based in Nashville, Tenn., and was founded by three fathers, launched in August 2013. The company distributes 2-3 minute "brain break" videos in schools to encourage kids to get up and move with the ultimate goal of improving attention spans and class behavior, while increasing physical activity.
The videos feature original characters like聽Maximo, created by a former Nickelodeon veteran, and the children鈥檚 rock band聽Koo Koo Kanga Roo,聽who encourage kids to get active and who teach certain subject material along the way. The videos are geared for students from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade.
The exercise content is driven by partner聽Zumba Kids, McQuigg says.
鈥淟ast year we began to get responses from teachers via social media telling us that they were using our content as a way of coping with recess being lost on storm and snow days,鈥� Mr. McQuigg says in a phone interview. 鈥淲hile we don鈥檛 at all see our videos as a replacement for PE or recess, but an added resource, it got us thinking about what we could do for teachers this winter.鈥�
Therefore, long before New England and other areas got socked-in by snowfall, GoNoodle had taken its three- to five-minute videos and created a series of 鈥渋ndoor recess mashups鈥� that run for 15 minutes each.
Currently, the site boasts 274,000 users who are classroom teachers and more than 5.5 million kids using the service in classrooms and at home.
While a study聽from Harvard University聽last January revealed, 鈥淸School] closures are not associated with changes in achievement,鈥� another study聽last year in The Journal of Pediatrics, showed that physical activity is key to increased focus and learning, especially for students diagnosed with ADHD.聽
Kristin J. Carothers,聽clinical psychologist at the聽Child Mind Institute聽in New York City, recently told聽海角大神聽that children often draw much of their mental motive power 鈥� their creativity 鈥� 聽from their ability to get in sufficient play time.
However, adults may become 鈥渇unctionally fixed,鈥� stuck, locked into their way of thinking, and then are afraid to change, which results in a lack of creative thinking, and a failure to adapt to demands or capitalize on opportunities.
鈥淏y having 'brain breaks' kids increase their cognitive ability,鈥� McQuigg says. 鈥淚 like that Dr. Carothers saw that as applying to becoming 鈥榝unctionally fixed鈥� because it still applies to students when they miss recess on days with inclement weather.鈥�