Bring calm, focus and social emotional learning support into your in-person or distance learning classroom using these effective 48 Mindfulness Brain Breaks. Now in both printable and Google Slides™ digital formats with pre-recorded narration and music. TRY A FREE SAMPLE HERE! What is Mindfulness? Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the here and now without judgement. It can be practiced where ever we find ourselves, in whatever we are doing. The first step into the present moment is breathing with awareness. By simply zooming our focus on breathing-in and breathing-out, we can quiet our minds, reduce felt sensations of stress, and cultivate compassion for self and others. How Mindfulness Helps: As educators (and parents), we often expect, tell, even demand that young people focus and pay attention. Yet many times we fail to model, guide, and teach them how to do this. By integrating more mindful moments into our own lives, and bringing simple, but very powerful, practices into our schools (and homes), we can help young people nurture the seeds of awareness, reflection, executive functioning, and emotional regulation. What the Research Says: Research shows that practicing mindfulness is an effective coping strategy for anxiety, anger, depression, trauma and other social emotional challenges. It builds neurological pathways that promote presence, attention, and self-regulation. And in the context of school, mindfulness can help students to refocus on the task in front of them and bring calmness during transition times. Mindfulness improves both social-emotional and academic learning. Plus, the very nature of mindfulness exercises are experiential, which we know is one of the most impactful ways to cultivate not only learning but also the JOY of learning. ❤️ Creating a Trauma Sensitive Classroom ❤️ More and more children and adolescents are coming to school in a heightened state of protectiveness and on-guardedness, as an adaptive strategy to survive the challenging experiences in their lives. These brain break activities are especially useful for cultivating a mindful, trauma-informed classroom. Practicing mindfulness not only creates a more peaceful, quiet environment in the classroom, mindfulness helps to create peace within, helping young people to feel more grounded, safe, and ready to learn and interact with others in healthy ways. What's Included: ✔ 48 Mindfulness Exercises ✔Google Slides™ presentation with pre-recorded narration, music and your choice of with or without Interactive Feelings Check-In ✔ 3 Different Printable Designs: vibrant colored cards, an ink-friendly set of cards and circle frames with front and back sides perfect to attach to craft sticks ✔ Why Teach and Practice Mindfulness Guide, Ideas for Use, and Assembly Instructions Ways to Use These Mindfulness Brain Breaks: ☀️ Begin each school day or counseling session with a mindfulness activity. ☀️ Place cards into a basket or bucket and randomly choose one or two for Brain Breaks. ☀️ Invite students who are feeling distracted or stressed to experiment with one of the activities. ☀️ Help students to re-center themselves using one or two activities during transition times. ☀️ Experiment with different activities when you and/or your students are feeling stressed or overwhelmed. Experiment when you and/or your students are feeling relaxed and calm too. The more we practice when we are in a relaxed state, the easier it will be to remember to use these mindfulness tools when we really need them! ☀️ Before inviting young people to try out different mindfulness activities, invite yourself to practice too. As it goes, we can only teach and guide what we know. Experiment with different mindful activities, noticing the ones that resonate and the ones that don't. Then share these different exercises with the young people you support. And then just notice what happens. Please note, 18 of the 48 Brain Break Mindfulness cards are part of my MINDFULNESS TOOLBOX: 10 Tools and Tricks. ✅ CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW MY STORE to be the first to learn about deals, sales and new releases! For other Distance Learning Social Emotional Learning Support Activities, check out: THE DIGITAL CALM CORNER: Coping Skills & Mindfulness Kit for SEL Distance Learning DIGITAL ANIMATED BREATHING EXERCISES: Distance Learning Mindfulness Coping Tools DIGITAL SELF-REGULATION COPING SKILLS GUIDE: SEL Distance Learning Home Support Self-Regulation Breaks & Mindfulness Breathing Videos for SEL Distance Learning

ABSOLUTELY!!! And this year it isn't just one or two... I have six of them. I discovered this fantastic book on pinterest to read to my students. When a child would call out I would remind them they were being a volcano. Even some of their peers would tell them that as well. However 2 weeks later I was over constantly having to remind these children about calling out. While browsing pinterest (yet again) I discovered a pin {click here for the original} that got me thinking. Using the blurt chart idea I created my own version using 'My Mouth is a Volcano' theme. I really want to remove my voice from the classroom some more. To be honest, I am over saying the same children's name a hundred times a day. (ok, I exagerate, but you know what I mean). Our rules are - - if a child calls out, then I will point to them and then the chart. - child gets up (without talking) and removes one of their volcanoes. (they have 3 volcanoes) - for every volcano that is missing, they owe me a minute at the next break. - if all 3 volcanoes are missing, then they owe me 3 minutes plus a warm fuzzy (will post about this later) - if their mouth is a volcano for more than 3 then they come up with the agreement that it is in the 'sin bin' for 15 mins at the next break. - everyone who still has their 3 volcanoes gets a warm fuzzy from me. At the moment (we have only been doing this for 3 days) I am doing it for each session. So at the beginning of the next session they start with 3 volcanoes again. I hope in a couple of weeks I can extend it out longer - we shall see!!! I am pleased to report, that in the short time we have been doing this I have noticed a good improvement in calling out. My voice is not being heard, I am using visual and kinesthetic methods to help them take ownership of their behaviours. As I said previously, so far, so good! Click here for a copy of my volcano chart. Please leave a comment if you use it. I would love to hear your stories about how you have dealt with children calling out in class.

This year my class is testing all my knowledge and beliefs about managing behaviours in our classroom. I am a strong believer in positive classroom behaviour, but have to admit, after 5 weeks of being a broken record it has become very difficult to remain positive!! But it is a new week... sMonday's are always positive :-)... Friday's are another matter! :-( Here is what I started the year with. Once again while on pinterest I found this great link using warm fluzzies. Click here for the original post that Sesusstastic posted. The resources on here are fantastic so I have basically copied everything from that link to set up my 'warm fuzzie' management. (no point re-inventing the wheel!!!) I have added extra coupons that are relevant to our school and our class and not used some that are 'american'. I started out handing out warm fuzzies for anything and everything positive that I saw in our classroom. I would have a daily focus (book bags in desks, reading books away etc) as well as general classroom behaviours. At an appropriate time children would put their warm fuzzies in their cup. (I have colour co-ordinated with their house colours red= pink, yellow = orange, green, blue) At the end of the week children count up their warm fuzzies and then record their score on a graph (linking to graphing that we did at the start of the year for maths). The students love getting warm fuzzies, and hate having to give them back if caught doing something they shouldn't be doing. If children have managed to get 10 warm fuzzies then they are able to trade in for 1 coupon from my organiser. For every 5 after that they get to choose another one. I have to admit that I haven't been totally organised when it comes to redeeming them in, but I am aiming to have trading Tuesday and Thursdays. I have followed the original post and not allowed students to count their fuzzies until the end of the week. With continuing behaviour issues with several of my students, I wondered if visually seeing what they had, would help motivate them to keep going with good behaviour. So I have now started a reward chart that I give them ticks, and at the end of the day, I make a big deal about how many warm fuzzies they have achieved and hand them out. The chart starts fresh the next day, and warm fuzzies are added to their cup again at the end of the day. What do you do for positive behaviour management? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Corkboard Connections is a blog written by Laura Candler who enjoys connecting terrific teachers with amazing resources!

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The American Psychiatric Association (APA) recommends the use of psychotherapy in the form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to treat PTSD (APA, 2010). CBT is a process that helps you to change your thoughts and replace them with more positive thoughts and behaviours. ⁣⁠ ???????????? ???????? ???? ????????????-???????????????? ????????????????????????????????. It starts with the neocortex, where we can process thoughts and rationalise. Once we have shifted our thinking and gained insights, changes take place in the mammalian brain around our emotional responses, and finally, the reptilian brain becomes calmer.⁣⁠ ⁣⁠ In my experience, top-down approaches are most effective when combined with a bottom-up approach. When there is repeated trauma, the neocortex is off-line. The body responds before we have had a chance to process what has happened. The trauma is held in the body, and working with the mind alone can be limiting.

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