Classroom Mindful Monday
Mindful Monday is a great way to start the school week. If you are looking for a way to bring some mindfulness into your classroom, you are going to love this Mindful Monday activity.
What is Mindfulness?
When you are mindful, you are paying full attention. Your mind is full of awareness - you are completely aware of where you are and what you are doing. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a class of mindful children?
If you are practising mindfulness, you will slow down and focus your attention on the present moment.
If you want your children to practise mindfulness, there is something you will need to focus on in your classroom. You will need to encourage your children to stop doing anything but the task at hand and to pay attention, with all their senses, to what they are currently doing.
It sounds great in theory but not such an easy task, especially in early childhood where young children’s minds wander so easily.
Practising mindfulness is an art. It takes a lot of focus and self-awareness. Being mindful can be difficult in the over stimulating world we live in. Our classrooms often reflect the business of the outside world so for focused learning to occur, we really need to be teaching mindfulness to our students.
We not only work in over stimulating environments but both teachers and students are often rushed and expected to complete tasks quickly. This can all lead to anything but a class of mindful children. Don’t worry - I have some great activities and ideas for teaching mindfulness. Mindful Monday is one of my favourites!!
You no doubt would love to slow down the classroom business and create a less stressful and calm learning environment.
Creating a mindful classroom and teaching mindfulness to your children is well worth the time and effort. There are so many benefits to creating a class of mindful children.
If you would like to learn more about the benefits of teaching mindfulness to children, you might be interested in this blog post - Creating a Mindful Classroom
This blog post outlines the many benefits of mindfulness for children and explains some quick and easy mindfulness activities. If you are interested in creating a calm and peaceful classroom environment, CLICK the pic to check out that blog post. It has a variety of activities and resources to help you.
What is Mindful Monday?
Mindful Monday is a lovely routine my students absolutely adore. It is such a beautiful way to start the school week.
When the doors open and the children enter the classroom, the space has already been prepped and set up ready for our Mindful Monday routine.
I have their levelled reading boxes placed around the central carpet area. These boxes contain the readers the children will choose from for their daily read-to-self sessions. We change the readers every Monday morning and the children keep their chosen readers in individual book boxes.
Then hidden around the room, in little intimate spaces, I have set up small clipboards with mindful colouring sheets, tins of crayons and pencils and tea-light candles in small coloured glass jars.
Before I open the door, I make sure all the overhead lighting has been turned off. The room isn’t really very dark as we have a variety of soft lighting from lamps and fairy lights around the room and the little tea-light candles give off a nice warm inviting glow.
I also make sure I have our Mindful relaxation music playing on the large screen. This music is an instant Mindful Monday reminder for the children. As soon as they enter the room, the music reminds them that it is Monday – Mindful Monday.
Why Every Monday Needs to be Mindfulness Monday
My feeling is that if we can start the week off calmly and with a strong routine, the rest of the week will run smoothly. Well, that’s the goal, I’m not saying we always reach that goal, but Mindful Monday does help to set the tone for our week.
Often, after a very busy weekend, the children enjoy a little down time and the gentle transition into the classroom that Mindful Monday activities provide. It’s a routine that helps to settle the children and prepare them for focused learning.
The Resources Needed for a Mindful Monday Routine
You don’t need much at all for an effective Mindful Monday routine.
Tins of colouring pencils or crayons.
Soft lighting. These can be tea-light candles or battery-operated fairy lights in small, coloured jars. A warning about those little tea-light candles: If swallowed, serious damage can occur in just 2 hours, if those tiny button batteries that light up the tea-light candles are swallowed.
If you have even the slightest concern that a child in your class might pull apart your tea-light candles and put the battery in their mouth, DO NOT use these candles.
A relaxing music track to play. I strongly recommend playing the relaxing music because it really does help create a calming atmosphere. I play this music every morning, not just on Mindful Mondays.
I’m hoping the children get the subliminal message that this music sets the tone for a quiet and peaceful start to every school day. This is a track I often use but my favourite one is a special Mindful Monday PPT presentation I made. You can download my Mindful Monday PowerPoint from the FREE Resources LIbrary HERE.
·Small clipboards with an A5 colouring sheet already clipped in place and ready to colour. If you would like some lovely little mindful colouring sheets which are age-appropriate and contain growth mindset and positive affirmations suitable for young children, check out the cute colouring sheets we use every Monday morning.
Mindfulness Activities for the Classroom
Mindful Monday has been an effective mindfulness activity in my classroom for many years. I know if you adopt this practice, you and your class will be well on your way to creating a mindful classroom so I have designed some freebies to help you.
Download my Mindful Monday Pack HERE. It contains printable posters, information for teaching mindfulness to kids, a calming mindful musical presentation you can play on Mindful Mondays and a selection of mindfulness colouring pages. The perfect set of mindful activities for the classroom pdf.
Download these classroom mindfulness resources to help you easily implement a Mindful Monday routine.
Mindful Monday Tips
On the Friday of the first week of school, I explain our Mindful Monday routine to the children. We discuss expectations and exactly what Mindful Monday is. I also explain why I think mindfulness is important and what the benefits of mindfulness are.
Here are some of the things we discuss:
Entering the room calmly and quietly.
Quiet voices. I stand at the door and greet every child with a whisper voice. I squat down low and make eye contact, smile, touch their arm or hand and whisper a little welcome.
Moving around the room slowly and with intent.
Changing the readers quietly.
Focusing on our breathing and our senses.
Finding a comfortable space to work. Some of the mindful Monday colouring spaces have been set up on the floor, others at low coffee tables and some at the larger school desks. Every space has no more that 4 clipboards. Keeping the groupings between 2-4 encourages less conversations and quiet work.
Working until the relaxing music stops.
When the music stops, it will be a signal to put your colouring away – either in your school bag or your notes home pocket.
When you have put your colouring sheet away, we then quietly pack up our Mindful Monday resources. The tea-lights are turned off and stored in a basket in the storeroom. The clipboards are returned to the clipboards basket and the tins of crayons and colouring pencils are returned to the desk tidy trays or the art shelf.
When everything has been packed away, we all meet on the carpet ready to start our tuning-in session for the day.
You will love Mindful Monday and so will your students. It is a wonderful way to start the school week and I’m sure it will become a treasured routine you implement year after year too.
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