Welcome to the New Mindfulness Page!
As the Learning Leader for Comprehensive Health and Fine Arts this year, it is my pleasure to aid teachers and students in discovering and practicing methods of mindfulness and well-being.
This is an idea of what lessons and resources have been shared with teachers, and the work that is going on during mindfulness time:
May
April
March
February
January
December
November
October
September
As the Learning Leader for Comprehensive Health and Fine Arts this year, it is my pleasure to aid teachers and students in discovering and practicing methods of mindfulness and well-being.
This is an idea of what lessons and resources have been shared with teachers, and the work that is going on during mindfulness time:
May
- Theme: April showers - 'er snow - bring May flowers...get outside!
- 5 minute outdoor field trips
- Looking at cool outdoor careers
- Videos on the health benefits of getting outside
April
- Theme: Digital Citizenship
- Resources from "Common Sense Education"
- Effective online search tools
- Going places and talking safely online
- Creating good passwords
- The digital trail
- The power of words and cyberbullying
- Publishing your work
- Writing good emails
March
- Theme: Nutrition!
- Canada's Food Guide
- Alberta Milk Resources: Healthy Plate Guide, Fueling Up, Where Does the Food I Eat Come From?
- Heart and Stroke Foundation Resources: healthy heart activities by grade
February
- Theme: How We Care For Others
- Exploring ways to show caring, kindness and and appreciation for others
- Random acts of kindness
- Listening to and discussing songs about caring and kindness
- Class discussions about sharing times of kindness
- Poetry for Valentine's Day
- Class discussion: who is someone you . love and what makes you feel loved
- Videos that compare children vs adult views on love
- Pink Shirt Day! Discussions about bullying behavior, bullying and how to stand up
January
- Theme: Active Bodies, Thriving Minds
- Theme: Relationships and Friendships
- For teachers, using resources from our inservice with Alberta Health Services on physical activities to do in the classroom that are integrated with Core subjects
- Students completing a survey to get feedback about mindfulness time and their thoughts on relationships, stress and support in the building
- Storybooks on relationships and friendships
- Discussion starters that share interesting things about students to the rest of the class, finding things in common within the classroom and building relationships
- Working effectively in a group
- Getting into the green zone, and how it affects others
- New breathing exercises that are shorter and more concise
- UR Strong resource for looking at positive and negative friendships
December
- Theme: Home Stretch to the Holidays!
- For teachers, a variety of discussion starters
- Class discussion: How Big Is the Problem?
- Creating some downtime in the classroom with the holiday craziness going on
- Class discussion: Holiday Activities, Safety and Gaming
- Developing a survey to get feedback about the mindfulness time
November
- Theme: New Perspectives
- For teachers, reflecting on mindfulness time, the approach, and its effectiveness
- For teachers, sample rubrics for Health lessons
- New look on food intake after Halloween
- New Apps for new and different breathing and meditating
- Alternatives for when you feel sad, confused or upset
- Building a vocabulary for different emotions
- Free-style poetry to express feelings and emotions
October
- Theme: Being "Ready" in October
- For teachers, sample routines and assessment for mindfulness
- Reviewing the purpose of mindfulness: giving students strategies to manage feelings of stress and anxiety, an opportunity at school to address concerns and ideas students have for conflicts, relationships and group work, and other topics of conversation about being mindful of your self, others and the school. This is all related to the Health curriculum at the elementary level
- Being ready for listening and learning
- Routines in the hallway, washroom and water fountain
- Ready for learning after recess and lunch
- Telling time
- Learning about the Zones of Regulation (creating routine)
- Circle meetings (creating routine/protocol)
- Role play about interrupting, inclusion and positive talk to peers (creating routine/protocol)
- Manners (creating routine)
September
- Theme: Self-awareness
- Whole-body listening
- Belly and meditative breathing
- Meditative listening
- Creating a meaningful school Code of Conduct
- Story books on self-awareness
- Goal setting and putting goals into Iris
- Buddy activity ideas to get to know each other/how you introduce/talk about yourself
- Staying healthy at school and not getting sick
- Being mindful at lunch (etiquette)