What is Mindfulness?
Overview
The following lesson is an introduction to mindfulness. It includes a few mindful practices and a few questions to guide student discussion.
Lesson Objectives:
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Grade: 3-5th grade Time frame: 30minutes |
Lesson Title: What is Mindfulness? | ||
Brain-based Strategies Used in the Lesson: Stress management Visual Learning Socialization | Formative Assessments: Formative assessment through exit slip of writing one thing they noticed during practice and puting it in the "mindfulness box" | ||
Prior to this lesson: What understanding and/or knowledge was taught prior? Where does this lesson fit in your unit? This lesson would be introductory to our unit on social-emotional learning (SEL). This lesson would serve as an introduction to stress management and the effects of stress on the brain. | |||
Materials:Include a copy of everything required to teach. Use hyperlinks when possible. You may add additional pages to the bottom of this lesson plan also. Include the assignment that students will be completing. Technology materials: (hardware, websites, video links,etc.) LaptopGoogle SlidesYoutube | |||
| Content Core Standard: (List the standard(s) and then hyperlink it to the standards website.Shape America Standard: Standard 4. The physically literate individual exhibits responsible personal and social behavior that respects self and others. (there are no specific SEL standards in SC. The CASEL core competencies as their guide for the national standards.) The CASEL concept covered in the lesson will be self-management | |||
| Technology used: Laptop, Zoom, Google Slides(discussion questions/ video) | |||
| Time | Materials | Lesson Procedures(Include the materials & technology.) | |
| 5 Mins | Intro: Students will turn and talk to a neighbor/ neighbors about things that stress or worry them. These will be things that stress them at home or school on a daily basis. They will also talk about what they do to cope with stress. | ||
| 15 Mins. | What is mindfulness | Introduce New Information: (Teaching) I will ask students if they have ever heard of mindfulness or know what it is. Few popcorn share outs what they already know. Then I will ask students what what they already know about radio and do a "show and tell" about a portable emergency radio (Does anybody know what this is? How does it work? When is it useful?) Demonstrate (play one station, try playing two stations simultaneously, sometimes radio batteries run out, so in order for this radio to work it needs our help, the real need is in emergency, but if we don’t know how to use it then it is useless in emergency). We can learn to fine tune our minds to be more like a radio with a great reception. Choosing what station we play, switching between radio stations if we get bad or difficult reception and playing only one station at the time.Most of the time our minds are not playing one station (they are stuck in between the radio stations) as we try to multitask (watch Youtube while eating, thinking about what we want to say when people are talking) but the truth is that our brains are not really designed to have two stations playing simultaneously at the same time. To be fully present in what we are doing right now, we can only attend to that one thing. You saw what happened if we tried to listen to two radio stations at the same time. The information we get is unclear, incomplete, filled with noise and we have trouble understanding it. Then students will then watch this video as an introduction to mindfulness and its importance in relieving stress. (Teaching) As you watched in the video mindfulness is a practice of attending to this present moment with kindness and curiosity. It can also help us calm down when we are angry, sad, frustrated, or have any difficult emotion. Mindfulness can help us feel happy too. It can also help us focus and do well in school, sports or music. We can only choose one thing to focus at the time. We can switch back and forth between radio stations, but we can only attend to and play NOW STATION so the information we receive is meaningful and kind for us & others. | |
| 5 Mins | Hands-on Activity Steps (Teaching): I will explain to students this may seem weird or awkward the first time they do this. They can keep their eyes open or close them depending on how comfortable they feel. Ring a bell at the start and end of each practice.
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| 5 Mins. | Practice Debrief: Group discussion Students will be placed in groups They will discuss the strategies they learned while performing the different mindfulness practices. They will talk about what they liked with the practices, what they didn’t like, what was weird for them, and if they feel relaxed after doing any of the practices. Then we will debrief in a large group. | ||
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Remember to include all the materials necessary to teach the lesson. You can add them by pasting them below or providing links to them.
Materials:
Portable small emergency radio
Bell (preferably Vibra-Tone)
Mindfulness Box (reused tissue paper box or any box for students to place their mindfulness practice debrief notes as an exit slip)