How to Sit!

 Happy March Everyone! ...

In February we had a fantastic professional development day training on Mindfulness in the Classroom. It was taught by the MHA: Mental Health America in Sheboygan County. Please google them and try to get them to do a training at your school. 

Maybe the reason why I enjoyed it so much is because I love learning about these things, but it was good. It was a long day of learning, but it was still very informational, and I left being excited about using it in my classroom.  It's not very often does that happen. 

I will need to be careful when I explain our lesson though, NONE OF THESE IDEAS ARE MINE.  We got to take home some amazing resources to use.  These blogs are how I used them in my classroom.  

There are links available, however you need to take the training to receive them.  

The plan I followed is the plan they gave us.  It is set up into 10 lessons. These lessons range from 15-30 minutes depending on your class and if they are into the lesson or not. It is also broken down really well for younger students to learn it slowly.  

The first lesson was just how to sit mindfully on a chair or on the floor. After my students watched the video, we practiced how to sit in our chairs and on the carpet mindfully.  My students were very familiar with this already being that we use whole body listening.  

To mindfully sit in your chair, you have your feet on the floor, bumper towards the front of your set to sit up straight. Hands are in your laps or on your table. 

To mindfully sit at the carpet is cris-cros legs, hands in lap, sitting up nice and tall.  

I will now change my vocabulary from whole body listening to mindfully sitting.  As my students learn more, they will start to understand that mindful sitting is much more than whole body listening.