This month, I am working with students in grades PK, K and 1 to learn and practice basic mindfulness strategies.  In our first lesson, we talked about mindfulness as a special way of paying attention–both to the things happening around us and also to the way we feel on the inside.

In our first few lessons, we’ve been really paying attention to our breathing. Using pinwheels, feathers, and “belly buddies,” we’ve been learning how slow, deep breathing can help us feel more calm. Here we are practicing some of our mindfulness skills:

The kids are loving it!  Here’s what one of the parents had to say after our first lesson:

I love that this is happening…the students I teach benefit from learning coping skills like this (when they use them 🙂 [My daughter] told me about her feather and actually asked for it a few times already when she was getting upset!