Just breathe...

I'll be honest, today was a tiresome day. My students seemed more amped up than usual. So I tried something today that I haven't been able to do with my class in awhile--mindful breathing. I had attempted it several times last year with my class, but I had several boys who seemed to make it their mission to get their classmates to laugh during our mindful breathing sessions. So after some reflecting, I decided it was best to not offer them an audience.

But this is a new year, and a new group of students, and I don't really have those attention seeking entertainers, so I thought it was worth a shot. In my daily schedule, we have a TRIBES/Mindfulness time to allow for community building opportunities and moments of reflection. This time period is right after recess, so I figured some mindful breathing might be good for them to cool down a little.

When the students came in from recess, I put on some music from the Nature Sounds channel on Pandora. I let that softly play in the background while explained what mindful breathing was. I let the students know that I wanted them to do one basic task: breathe. Push out other thoughts that might pop into your minds during this time and just focus on breathing in and out. Something bad happened at recess? Breathe it out. You're worried about what you are going to do after school? Just breathe it out. Focus on the here and now, and breathe. I let the music play for 2 minutes, breathing in and out the whole time. It was really relaxing. Does it feel a little weird? You bet. But if it works, why not?

I would say it worked pretty well and got the students back on track for awhile. We had a pretty full morning between recess and lunch with science, handwriting, and computers. But I probably should have spent my whole lunch period doing some mindful breathing following computer time. The students are very new to getting logged into our class set of Chromebooks, so there is a lot of hand-holding needed. But top that off with trying to get the students to stay focused on a task and download an app from the Chrome Store will tire you out. But we got the app...and they will be ready to practice typing soon (once they get better at logging in :-)

Well, it's late and I'm tired, so this is it for the night. I will leave you with our classroom mindfulness thought for the week: Make you the best you through your words and actions.


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