Mindful Classrooms is a program through Mindful Schools, in which I have the honor of sharing mindfulness with students throughout the county. Following are the excerpts from the parent newsletter sent at the end of each week.....
Mindful Moments – week ending 10/16/15
What a mindful week! We began by emphasizing heartfulness on the playground. Heartfulness, our made-up word representing mindful kindness and caring towards others, had our students reaching out to one another on the playground before/after school and throughout recesses. Our students quickly realized that although they could consistently keep an eye out for one another spatially or extend care to someone physically hurt on the playground, it takes great heartfulness to recognize when someone is “hurt inside” and might need a friend.
We ended our week focusing on a concept we’ve been slowly introducing…. creating space between our difficult emotions and what we choose to do with them. When we mindfully respond with intent to occurrences throughout our day, as opposed to reacting impulsively, we discovered that we feel better. WE are in control – not our emotions! Emotions are natural. Mindfulness doesn’t take difficult emotions away. We can't control when anger/disappointment/frustration/ boredom starts and when it ends. But mindfulness can help us be patient with difficult emotions, so we can make decisions that help us rather than harm us. It’s an important concept that we’ll continue to explore!
Mindful Family Challenge: Emotional role-play and review: Think of several scenarios your child might encounter that could trigger big, difficult emotions (teasing from a sibling, frustration over a sudden change in plans, losing a play-off game, etc). Role-play and take turns acting out how you could react. Review and examine the emotions that come up while talking about how it would feel to respond with intent versus reacting impulsively.
Remember to take mindful family moments this weekend and have fun together!
Mindful Moments – week ending 10/23/15
Due to this week’s conference schedule at school, we had only one mindful lesson…but it was a mighty one. Our students continued to explore the meaning of creating space between our big emotions and what we choose to do with them. We practiced using our breath to mindfully slow down our bodies. Our thoughts and emotions are still with us, but in a moment of focusing on our breath, we can slow our heart rate, calm our thoughts and move forward in a mindful way….both emotionally and physically. We respond, not react!
Mindful Family Challenge: Moody Cow Mind Jar: Learning to see situations mindfully and clearly through our big emotions and thoughts can be challenging! By creating a calming mind jar, out of a few materials, we can craft a tool to help slow down and calm the overwhelm in our mind. Just like the swirling glitter in the jar, we visualize those swirling things in our mind that feel very big and use each breath to calmly slow and settle them down…..clearing the way we view the situation mindfully!
Remember to take mindful family moments this weekend and have fun together!
