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8 Ways to Teach Mindfulness to Kids 

8 Ways to Teach Mindfulness to Kids 
We know mindfulness is good for us. Mindfulness allows us to be present in our parenting, choosing a skillful response, instead of succumbing to our visceral reactions. Mindfulness is also good for our kids. There is an emerging body of research that indicates mindfulness can help children improve their abilities to pay attention, to calm down when they are upset and to make better decisions. So where do we start? Establish your own practice. Keep it simple. Check your expectations. The purpose of teaching mindfulness to our children is to give them skills to develop their awareness of their inner and outer experiences, to recognize their thoughts as “just thoughts,” to understand how emotions manifest in their bodies, to recognize when their attention has wandered, and to provide tools for impulse control. Don’t force it. Now that we’ve got the preliminaries out of the way, here are some suggestions for how you can begin to introduce mindfulness to your children: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

"I Wish My Teacher Had Known..."—Adults on How Teacher Empathy Could Have Changed Their Lives by Lindsey Weedston Kyle Schwartz, an elementary school teacher in Denver, recently came up with an activity for her third-grade class that went viral. Employed at a school where 92 percent of kids qualify for free or reduced lunch , Schwartz was looking for a way to better understand her students. She handed out notecards and asked them to finish this sentence: “I wish my teacher knew…” The results were heart-wrenching: Although it’s a minor problem in comparison to what some of Schwartz’s students are going through, to this day I still wish my teachers had known how hard it was for me to give presentations. The terror. Watching Schwartz’s story take off on the Internet got me thinking about how much we are affected by experiences in school beyond our classes, extracurricular activities, and cafeteria gossip. Why does school have to be something kids “survive”? Here are some of their responses, which have been lightly edited: In sixth grade, a standardized test revealed she read at a college level.

Ditching the Desk I decided to focus on learning spaces this year in the classroom and around my school. It led me to create a makerspace in my school's library, but it also led me to take a hard look at the classroom. Last summer, I visited my classroom and decided to change it around. The entire process started with one simple question: "Is this room designed for me or for my students?" The Benefits of Desk-Free Teaching The major change that I made in the classroom was deciding to get rid of my teacher desk. 1. By getting rid of the teacher desk, there was more space in the room for the student desks to spread out. 2. The teacher desk has always created a barrier between student and teacher. 3. I have always considered myself an active teacher in the classroom. 4. By the end of the year, I no longer felt comfortable calling it "my room." Gone But Not Missed Ditching the desk is not a brand new idea, but it was a crazy one for me to consider at the start of the year.

First Day of Kindergarten! Wow! I can't believe we just completed our first day of kindergarten. Summer sure did fly by! Here's just a few of the things we did on day one. This doesn't seem like a lot to do, but when you are taking a lot of time to discuss rules and procedures for everything, you don't have much time left. We started the day by collecting supplies as parents brought the students in. After collecting supplies, rules were given for lining up on their numbers and restroom procedures as we took our trip to the restroom and water fountain. When we returned, we read "The Day the Monster Came to School." After this, we had recess time followed by a tour of the lunchroom to show them the lunchroom procedures and where we would be sitting. Then it was time for another read aloud. After this, we had lunch time followed by activity in the gym. We ended the day by creating our fun "My first day of school: I am a Kindergartener" headbands. Have a great year!

Grades K-1: First-Day Projects | Scholastic.com Just Like Home 3 ways to ease first-day jitters To create a soothing environment, play soft music as your students arrive. Choose a piece that is significant to you to give students an idea of who you are. Begin the day with a good book. Splat the Cat, by Rob Scotton, is the story of a cat who is incredibly worried about his first day of school. Show your students a photograph of yourself at their age and share some of your first-day stories. Yes, You Can! Standard Met: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.1 What you need: Construction paper, crayons, chart paper or poster board What to do: At the start of the year, Tammy McMorrow, a first-grade ­teacher at Indian Creek Elementary in Kuna, Idaho, asks kids to do things that are out of their comfort zone, from reading challenging books to following new rules. McMorrow has students write the word can on a piece of construction paper. Happy Handprints A Classroom Family Tree What you need: Brown butcher paper, family photos, crayons, glue DIY Rule Book

Beyond "Ditching the Desks," 9 Creative Ways to Avoid "The Cemetery Effect" Avoiding “The Cemetery Effect” a collaborative post via Thomas Murray and Erin Klein This first segment reads from the Voice of Thomas Murray: State and District Digital Learning Director for the Alliance of Excellent Education, Washington D.C. A few months ago while driving through back roads in Pennsylvania, I came across a carefully laid out cemetery. Each stone was equidistant from the other. During the industrial era where students were essentially trained to work in factories, “career readiness” meant preparing for jobs where a worker would spend hours a day performing the same task, often even spending his/her entire career at the same company. But that world of work no longer exists in our nation. Freebie for Kleinspiration Readers... My Free 18 Page eBook with Printables, Classroom Photos, and More! Classroom design consultant and Classroom Cribs co-founder, Erin Klein, shares the following tips to help educators avoid “The Cemetery Effect”. Incorporate the Student Voice Declutter.

Free and Easy Rewards for Students Coming up with positive ways of motivating our students is half the battle of creating a classroom discipline strategy. Here is a list of rewards that are both easy and free (or super-duper cheap!): Get to choose if we have lights on or off for the afternoon.Bring a non-water drink to class (or allow a water bottle at their desk if drinks are usually prohibited).Sit wherever you want during read aloud time.

Initial Letter Name Activity and Bulletin Board – Prek – K Initial Letter Name Activity and Bulletin Board – Prek – K By Teachers.Net Community closeAuthor: Teachers.Net Community Name: Teachers.Net CommunitySite: See Authors Posts (233) First, the activity pictured, then below that see additional, related lessons and activity links!One of the first activities of the new kindergarten year in the contributing teacher’s class is this activity in which students receive a cut out of the first letter of his or her name [you can make your own large letters, written on and cut from card stock] and stickers, glue-ons, markers, etc. to use in decorating the front of the letter. When finished, the beautiful letter is added to the coordinating sentence strip on the bulletin board. .Additional activities: Find the names that begin with the same letter. Students who are ready can add a sentence stating another word that begins with the initial letter of their name. Related lessons and activities: Fun With Letters Catch the Letter

20 Tips for Creating a Safe Learning Environment I visit a lot of classrooms. And I'm always fascinated by the variety of ways teachers launch the new school year and also with how they "run their rooms" on a daily basis. From these visits and my own experiences as an instructor, I'd like to offer my top 20 suggestions for keeping your classroom a safe, open, and inviting place to learn. 1. Community Build All Year Long. Routinely include strategies and activities in your lessons, such as Save the Last Word for Me, that allow students to express their thoughts and ideas, build relationships, and practice collaboration. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Do any of these especially resonate with you?

7 Ways to Increase a Student's Attention Span | Edutopia Children often struggle to pay attention, but when they are given a task they view as challenging or hard, they are even more likely to give up before truly trying. If you notice a child that is regularly losing focus during challenging tasks, here are some strategies that might help increase that attention span and improve the overall outcome of tasks. 1. Kids who struggle with attention often do better if they are given brief breaks for active play. 2. Teach the child or children what "paying attention" means and how it looks. 3. If you find that, no matter what you do, the kids just can't seem to stay on task, it may be time to break content into smaller time intervals. If you need to adjust time frames for all or some of your students, do so. Also, be cautious about lengthy lectures with kids with short attention spans. 4. When a child is struggling with a difficult task, clutter in the classroom or on the desk can make it impossible to keep his/her brain where it needs to be. 5.

Teacher Collaboration: Matching Complementary Strengths | Edutopia Spreading Best Practices Schoolwide Teacher collaboration at Wildwood helps to diffuse conflicting adult dynamics, fosters a collaborative culture that puts the students' learning first, and turns a teacher's best practice into a schoolwide best practice. Teacher collaboration is a top priority at Wildwood. Here is what works for them: Teachers share work products on a common drive. "So often we hold all the good things we do to ourselves because it becomes kind of a like a competition," says fourth-grade teacher Karl Wiedegreen. Virtual Collaboration: Share Work Products on a Common Drive By sharing work products on Google Drive, Wildwood teachers know what their colleagues outside of their collaboration group are doing. Even without meeting in person, they have instant access to work products, like: Unit plans Lesson plans Curriculum maps Schedule Time for Collaboration "Teacher collaboration at Wildwood is really intentional," says fourth-grade teacher Karl Wiedegreen. Co-Plan Your Lessons

How Much Performance Pizzazz Does a Teacher Need to be Effective? By GABRIELLE EMANUEL, NPR This fall the NPR Ed team is celebrating great teachers and examining what makes great teaching. When Amanda Siepiola steps into her second-grade classroom, she channels two role models. “I’m a big Bruce Springsteen fan,” says Siepiola, a teacher at Horace Mann Elementary School in Washington, DC. “And when I go to his concerts, I end up leaving and saying, ‘I want to teach like him.’ ” The other role model is Siepiola’s own English teacher from the 1990s at Clinton High School in upstate New York: Ms. “She was a performer, where she was on all the time,” Siepiola says. Siepiola has been teaching for well over a decade and says she is naturally quiet and reserved but, in the classroom, she amps up her enthusiasm. Siepiola readily admits, “I am performing.” One morning as her second-graders sit cross-legged on the rug, Siepiola whispers, “See what makes you feel excited.” “See what makes your heart race a little bit, your face get a little hot. ‘Anyone?

Morning Work Solutions! Today is all about the morning routine! What students do for the first five minutes of the day sets the tone for learning all day long! As students step over the threshold of your classroom they are being hit with a swarm of internal emotions and questions. How do I feel? Am I interested? Is this important? Can I do this? We want to set the tone for learning while also establishing our classroom behavior expectations right at the doorstep, but we also need to ease the anxiety level of our students and let them know that above all, we are glad they have arrived at school, they are cared for, and we want to help them be successful! Choosing a morning routine that can address the revolving door of early morning arrivals and last minute dash ins is crucial! When students arrive they work their way through a series of interactive activities all housed in one special binder in their desks. The activities are self-paced and ever changing. Daily Language Bundle Rise and Shine Binder Daily Math Bundle

B and D Reversals: A Developmental Approach {Easy Trick Included} B and D reversals are a common issue among younger children. There are many “tricks” teachers and parents try, like holding your fingers up to form the b and d or that the b has a belly and the d doesn’t. But in my experience, these tricks don’t always “do the trick” because kids still have a hard time visualizing which way the b and d face. *This post contains affiliate links. B and D Confusion from a Developmental Approach Older, struggling readers/writers can also confuse b and d. “I have a 3rd grader and she still reverses her b‘s and d‘s. I probed further to find out that her child was reading and writing on a 1st grade level. I responded something like, “Your daughter is demonstrating the spelling behavior of a 1st grader because that’s the developmental stage she’s in. Easy and Discrete Trick for B and D Reversals As for the b and d reversals, it can be a source of embarrassment for kids who are the older grades, yet in a younger/lower developmental stage. See On

No Flour Playdough A Facebook fan of mine asked me about making rice four or flour-free playdough for those who are gluten sensitive. As I am lucky enough to have a family without food allergies, I turned to my network of preschool bloggers. Dawn from chasing the seasons shared a wonderful recipe with me using only baking soda, cornstarch, and water. Cornstarch, baking soda and water make up the basic ingredients of this lovely dough. First we added the color and orange oil to the water. We placed the baking soda into the pot. Then we added the cornstarch. I showed Michael how it can make his skin soft (makes a great body powder). My son, who has no problem being dirty all day long, was distraught by the cornstarch on his arm. After the dry ingredients were added, Michael poured in the colored water. We moved the pot to the stove where we began cooking the dough. The completed dough, still warm to the touch. Michael enjoyed sticking his fingers in the warm dough. Recipe: Add color (and scent) to water.

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