We want to share the biggest mistake we made when starting a mindfulness practice with our students and what we learned from it.
Our hope is that this helps you kick-start your classroom mindfulness practice with less trial and error than we went through in the beginning!
Our #1 mistake was introducing a mindfulness practice when the students were super energetic to try to calm them down.
Learning mindfulness, we found out, is just like learning to read. You can’t jump right to reading chapter books. In addition, teaching children a new skill like reading or mindfulness when they are excitable and having a hard time concentrating is just not a good time.
The best time to begin a mindfulness practice is when students are already calm and receptive to learning new things. We found that the best time for us was first thing in the morning.
As we made practicing mindfulness a part of our morning routine our students began to acquire the skills of mindful breathing, self-awareness and self-regulation.
That’s when the magic started to happen. Once they had the skills, we were able to use them in other parts of their day to help them calm down and get ready to learn.
It’s just like reading. At first, you teach your students specifically how to read. Then once they’ve acquired the skills, you can ask them to read instructions in other subject matters like math and science.
If you’re ready to experiment with a mindfulness practice in your classroom, you can try out day 1 of all of our classroom mindfulness courses for free to see if it’s a good fit for you and your kiddos.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO OUR ONLINE EDUCALME SCHOOL
Now, we invite you to take a deep breath with us. Inhale. Exhale.
With calm and appreciation,
Kailey and Josianne