This year mindfully listening to the bell has been our daily practice. ( Here ). The children are asked to listen to the bell quietly then raise their hand when they no longer hear its' sound. There are many benefits to this daily focussing practice. The bell is an easy object for the children to anchor their attention. Mindfully attending to their breath this year was more challenging for this younger group of children. Belly breathing with their stuffies, ( HERE) while an affective lesson isn't easily done as a daily practice. Counting our in/out breaths with the star or sphere ( here) while excellent individual tools for quiet island and calming oneself down is also not something easily used for our daily practice. Seeing this, I decided to have the children use something personal & concrete to anchor onto that was easy to make, hold , carry and use daily after the bell. We made our breathing bracelets. Each bracelet has a starting bead and 10 movable beads. They are asked to breath in and out sliding one bead at a time until they reach their last 10th bead. This was very helpful and concrete way for the students to practice . |
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