Mindfulness Club

Date: 18th Nov 2019 @ 2:00pm

Mindfulness Club 2019-2020

At St. Mary's, we recognise the importance of taking care of children's emotional and mental health and well being. In order to help children become more resilient, more present in the moment and more relaxed, we run a mindfulness club on a Monday lunchtime. Each week, we will be completing different activities relating to mindfulness. Keep your eyes peeled on our website to see what we have been getting up to! 

Week 1 - 18th November

This week, we were introduced to the concept of mindfulness and what it is all about. We were given a range of activities to try out: colouring sheets, drawing activities, scratch art, reflection / prayer time and breathing activities. We also listened to a guided meditation to introduce us to mindfulness and to calm us and make us present in the moment. 

Week 2 - 25th November

This week, we did a guided meditation, where we listened to a voice and we followed some instructions (the instructions included breathing activities and visualisation techniques). Afterwards, we were split into pairs and we were given a balloon. Our task was to keep the balloon afloat: we had to imagine that the balloon was a precious bubble and that if we dropped it, it would break. We tried different techniques to keep it in the air: some of us hit it quite hard with our full hand; others hit it gently with just one finger; some people tried to increase the distance their balloon had to travel; and others tried to keep the balloon as high in the air as they could. Before we finished, we tried to pass a balloon all the way around the room without it touching the floor. This activity really relaxed us as the balloon moved very slowly and silently, and we had to watch it constantly to check it did not hit the floor. 

Week 3 - 2nd December

This week, we concentrated on breathing techniques. We played some quiet music and designed our own pinwheels to use when completing breathing exercises. Our pinwheels were all different and beautiful, just like us, and they helped us to focus our energy and stop negative thoughts from entering our brains. We enjoyed designing our pinwheels and we used lots of our favourite colours to create them.

Week 4 - 9th December

This week's focus was on gratitude. We discussed how gratitude was feeling grateful for something or someone in our lives. Mrs Naylor challenged us to complete a gratitude list, where we had to list all of the things in our lives that we were grateful for. She set a target of 50 things, which was extremely difficult. We had to think about things in our lives that were not material (iPhones, tablets, toys, etc). It encouraged us to think about our families, friends, health and happiness, and it helped us to feel more grounded: we all left the session feeling extremely grateful for all we have.

Next week is our final session of mindfulness in 2019: the club will continue in 2020 and children are more than welcome to attend on Monday lunchtimes at 1:00pm in the Year 6 classroom.