Your kids are going to need brain breaks more than ever. I'm going to need brain breaks more than ever. But a lot of the ones I use in my classroom are harder to do virtually. So here's something I think might translate:
1. As a class, design a clapping game with words attached. E.g. I want them to remember the phrase "quid me fiet," so we design a quick clapping game for quid me fiet. They play three times quickly with a partner, and then three times quickly with someone else. You could also simply clap a pattern and have them repeat. This is a good one to have kids lead, too.
2. Have them find a particular object - a pencil, something blue, a thing bigger than they are.
3. X and O - have them curl their bodies into a tiny O-shape and then either expand out into an X or pop up into an X shape.
4. This one, if you do it TL, is great for directions: Have the kids stand up. They should move their right hands in front of them from left to right, fingers pointing up, palm facing away. Then stop. Move the right hand up and down. Then do it at the same time, trying not to move either hand diagonally. Then switch hands. Then cross your arms and do it.
5. Three snaps. I could imagine this being done in a breakout room.
6. Rock-paper-scissors tournaments in breakout rooms. Even better if you attach a phrase to it. So as they're tapping out rock paper scissors, they could say "rock paper scissors" in your TL," or they could, I dunno, repeat an idiom or a phrase from something you're reading or working on. Then switch up the breakout rooms if you like.
7. Counting. You say one. Someone else says two. You continue this until you hit [target number]... but the catch is that more than one person can't talk at once. So if three kids say "two," you start over again.
8. Tell them: number your left shoulder 1, left ear 2, nose 3, right ear 4, right shoulder 5. Find a partner and face them. Touch any two of those in combination. Your partner has to do the math target language (e.g. you touch your left shoulder and nose, and your partner says unum et tria sunt quattuor)
9. Rehearsing body parts by touching random ones. Bonus points if they're odd to touch together, like touch your nose to your poplites (the backs of your knees). Tell them: touch your elbows to your nose. Touch your ears with your ankles. Touch your eyebrows with your hips/knees/whatever. Rinse and repeat.
Thanks to Justin Slocum Bailey for this one.
10. Show the kids a picture and have them attempt to imitate that picture. Using much art in your curriculum? This is a great way to incorporate or connect it.
11. Give a vocab word and have them act like that vocab word. Lion, tree, table. Hope. Love.
12. Mountain, tree, chair, forward fold. Pick four yoga poses and walk the kids through them quietly and mindfully.
13. Stand up, get your wiggles out. :)
14. 54321 actions. Call out five and then whatever action you want (five jumping jacks, eg), 4 and then an action (4 beep noises), etc.
15. If you're happy and you know it! My kids find this and Old McDonald hilarious, especially when they can say any animal they want, or supply bizarre verbs. In Latin, I like:
si gaudetis omnes vestrum, plaudite (clamate, dormite, mugite, whatever)
si gaudetis omnes vestrum, plaudite
si gaudetis omnes vestrum, demonstretis omnes vestrum
si gaudetis omnes vestrum, plaudite