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Top Tips for Making Your School’s Mindfulness Program a Success: Engaging Staff and Parents
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Make a family night and invite families to come and share some fun ways to bring a little “calm” into their lives with mindfulness. I would have them pick one thing to work on at home and let me know how it goes to share experiences and information in how we can do this as a team.
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Going out playing sports or just a picnic outside at the park with the children and family can improve mindfulness in everyone.
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Great idea, Ilene! Outdoor activities like sports and picnics foster connection and mindfulness for both kids and families.
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I think that creating a handout for parents on mindful moments to have at home would be super helpful for parents. I will make sure to include why mindfulness is important for young children; how it helps them, a few breathing techniques, and yoga poses, so that parents can help kids do this stuff at home as well as at school. That way we can help create a world full of mindful people. That would be amazing to see someday and I honestly hope that it happens.
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Posting a weekly yoga move and breathing technique. Encourage reading lists of books with themes of kindness and empathy.
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Simple interacting ideas. Walks, reading, yoga or water play
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Great suggestions, Samuel! Incorporating walks and yoga can really enhance mindfulness for both kids and adults.
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I like to incorporate movement into our circle time and breathing exercises. We will send home pictures to the parents via our communication of our classes participating in mindfulness activities.
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Great idea, Regina! Incorporating movement and sharing photos fosters engagement and encourages mindfulness practice at home.
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Sending out newsletters with weekly activities for parents to work with children at home and help out at school with. It can be taking a walk looking at nature’s beauty, art project.
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Great ideas, Jennifer! Newsletters can foster collaboration and creativity between parents and children while promoting mindfulness in daily activities.
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Practicing a different mindfulness activity in class everyday and updating the parents on what we tried so as to keep them informed and invite them to try the same activities at home with their child
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Great idea, Maria! Keeping parents informed fosters collaboration and encourages mindfulness practices at home. Well done!
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Since the weather is getting warmer, I can have the kids and parents work on gardening. Even if it is just helping with watering the fruit plants and smelling the roses in my yard. Allow the younger ones to pick up pinecones and talk about what they discover outside.
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Great idea, Dawn! Gardening fosters mindfulness and connection with nature, benefiting both kids and parents.
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I love to do breathing activities with kids in the morning before outside or anywhere because this will calm their little mind and body down . They get so excited so they need to just sit and calm their body and mind.
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Great idea, Mai! Breathing activities are a wonderful way to help children center themselves and prepare for the day.
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Each day the teachers and myself will incorporate mindfulness in the classroom. During circle time we will practice our breathing techniques , during lunch time we will practice chewing our food slowly and listening to our bodies, to Arts and crafts, where we will incorporate mindfulness activities like making playdough or sensory objects and even playing games.
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Daily kids yoga during circle time. simple stretches and focused breathing.
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After teaching the kids a few mindfulness exercises, I’d like to make a few short videos (with parents’ permission) of the kids practicing the exercises. We will send information home about the benefits of mindfulness exercises and how it can help the HOME life. We would send the mindfulness exercise videos to the parents and have the children teach the activity to their families, with the help of the videos. Children love seeing pictures and videos of themselves and parents and families also love seeing pictures and videos of their kids. I feel like this will make the activity more likely to be done at home.
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Send home a newsletter with different ideas we will be working on that month and opportunities for them to participate with us if they want to.
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I laminate various yoga pose illustrations and let the children try them.
