Mindfulness is a skill that anyone of any age can benefit from, even young kids in elementary school. Therefore, it is a skill that you and your students can benefit from in your classroom.
One of the most important things in choosing to incorporate mindfulness into your classroom is to find ways that work for YOU! Mindfulness is not beneficial for you as the teacher if it causes more stress. Therefore, it is important to choose mindful activities that are easy and fun to add to your classroom.
Mindfulness in the classroom
There are many fun and easy ways to add mindfulness to your classroom that you and your students will love. Beyond just being fun, there are different mindfulness techniques to use for different situations.
Mindful breathing is a great way to teach mindfulness to kids. Journaling and affirmations are great for individual mindful activities, while mindful communication activities are great for creating awareness of those around you.
What about when your students are restless and wiggling in their seats?
While it seems like you may want to do a quiet mindfulness activity, giving them permission to move may be the best way to settle them down. Mindful movement is perfect for this!
What is Mindful Movement?
Mindful Movement is movement that is intended to help students have a brain break that can help them refocus. It also gives them permission to move their bodies and have fun during class!
As a teacher, you may feel that giving students permission to get up and move around can lead to classroom management issues. However, oftentimes giving students time to take a physical break helps them be more engaged in their learning.
Mindful movement can be as simple as having students stand up at their desks and stretch up towards the ceiling and wiggle their fingers. It can be a bigger movement like taking a walk around the classroom or going for a classwalk outside. It can also be a formal movement like a yoga pose.
The most important thing with mindful movement is that it works for your classroom! Remember that you can use different movements on different days. You can use several different mindful movements in one day as well.
Mindful Movement Activities For Kids
As we said earlier, you want mindfulness to be fun and easy! Therefore, we have put together some of our favorite activities to share with you and help you get started.
Mindful Movement
Our mindful movement series is full of fun movements that students can do at their desks or in a big circle. They range from weather movements (sway like a tree!) to sports movements (shoot the basketball!) and even magical creatures (narwhal!).
Mindful Yoga
Our mindful yoga series includes cards to teach your students some traditional and fun kid yoga poses. This includes poses like tree pose, star pose, and butterfly pose. These poses are fun to do in the classroom or can even be done during an outside class break.
Mindful Brain Breaks
Our mindful brain breaks series is a variety of movements to help your students get the wiggles out and refocus on learning. A few of these fun movements include animal walk, marching band, and even one that you can do seated – wiggle worm!
