It can be very hard to calm a class full of children, especially when they’re bored. But, what if we told you that we have a secret for that?
Mindfulness is the state of mind when you’re being conscious or aware of something. It helps you calm down and have a better understanding of your thoughts and emotions. And mindfulness activities for the classroom are a perfect way to achieve it.
Mindfulness is an important exercise that children should be encouraged to apply. What better way is there to convince them to do so than games! 🙌
MentalUP is an educational gaming app that has 150+ games to support the mental development of children. It also features 240+ physical games to support children do their daily movements. 🧠🤸
The mindfulness games offer a fun area and practical way to help your children achieve mindfulness. There are also games that boost memory, enhance focus, and so much more! 🤩✨
Promoting mindfulness in the classroom is not only a way to calm the students as mindfulness education has many other benefits for them. Here are some of the benefits of mindfulness for children according to the APA (American Psychological Association):
As you can see, mindfulness has many mental, psychological, social and physical benefits. Therefore, the importance of mindfulness for students can’t be overstated.
We gathered the 10 best mindfulness activities for the classroom to be able to adapt mindfulness education to children’s lives.
You can provide mindfulness in elementary education by including fun mindfulness class activities into the curriculum. We’ll start with one of the most basic mindfulness practices for students breathing.
You can start teaching mindfulness in the classroom with this easy exercise. It’s also one of the fun mindfulness activities for kindergarten.
Shark Fin breathing exercises are perfect for facilitating calmness quickly and spontaneously and for helping kids sort out their thoughts and feelings while relaxing the body. It helps focus on the “now”. You can also use it as one of a great warm up games for kids before longer mindfulness activities for students.
This exercise will take 2 minutes at most. We told you it was quick.
Mindful breathing colors exercise is one of the creative mindfulness techniques for the classroom.
Children will calm down and let go of their unhealthy thoughts and feelings. It will also help kids manage stress and overcome anxiety.
This exercise will take 5 minutes.
Mindful breathing exercises are another example of quick mindfulness activities for the classroom.
Mindful breathing enables students to be present, improve their concentration and sort out their feelings.
This exercise is one of the 5 minute classroom mindfulness activities.
Encourage students to think about how the breath feels. It is important that they only focus on breathing and that their minds don’t wander off during the exercise.
Mindfulness exercises help improve children’s focus and attention span. However, there are other practices designed for the sole purpose of improving children’s attention, focus, and concentration skills. MentalUP is one of them with its learning games and workouts for kids.
MentalUP is a pedagogically certified app that has 150+ games that, from improving concentration to boosting visual intelligence, all have their specific goals. You can create a plan based on the skills your children need improvement and easily track their progress.
Such ideas for mindfulness in the classroom are perfect to practice in class because students can take them home. Better yet, ask them to teach their parents the mindfulness exercises they learn in class.
Need a time out? Mindful body scans help children relax, focus on bodily sensations, and calm their minds. It is also one of the exercises that are perfect before bedtime.
This exercise takes about 10 minutes.
You may ask questions like “How do your arms feel?”, “Are your hands cold or warm?” to draw the student’s attention to the body scan and amplify the benefits of mindfulness for children. Also, you can always benefit from appropriate mental health apps to make this exercise easier.
It’s snack time! This is one of the mindfulness strategies for the classroom that helps us notice actually how mindlessly we do things. You will be able to teach them that it is better to savor and enjoy a bar of chocolate instead of gobbling it in less than a minute.
This exercise is best for 3rd graders and up. Be careful with foods that are choking hazards and beware of allergies.
Mindful eating can combat overeating as it helps us realize how much and what exactly we eat. It allows focusing on the flavors and tastes of different foods and noticing what effects different foods have on how our bodies feel. It also builds the capacity for stillness and mindful focus.
Mindful eating exercises take about 5 minutes.
Mindfulness is about being present, so if their thoughts drift away, tell them to simply bring them back to the candy.
Ready to get out of the classroom? This activity is best completed outdoors and if suitable, students may walk barefoot to have a more intense experience. To ensure safety, give students a clear boundary for where they can walk during this exercise.
These kinds of outdoor activities for kids, such as mindful walks, help children sort out their feelings and thoughts while calming the mind. It also helps them reduce stress and anxiety. Try it with your elementary students.
A 10-minute walk will be enough for this mindfulness exercise.
It will be more effective if the students focus on the following during the exercise:
You can also discover PE games to strengthen kids’ mindfulness skills and bodies besides walking!
There is a difference between hearing and listening, whereby hearing is just the bare perception of sound by the ear and listening is a conscious action of processing that stimulus. Thus, the lack of listening skills is one of the main reasons children can experience learning difficulties. Try mindful hearing, an exercise that helps develop listening skills. It teaches children to concentrate on what they hear and to start actively listening to it.
Later on, ask your students to apply this exercise to your voice and concentrate on what you say when they feel disconnected to the class. You can apply it to students of all ages.
As mindful hearing will help calm the body, it will also help improve listening and concentration skills. It is also one of the quick mindfulness activities for the classroom and perfect for sudden anger, cry bursts, and other raging emotions.
This exercise will only take 2 minutes.
For this exercise, you will have to guide the students and you’ll need something that makes a bell sound (you can easily find apps that provide a bell sound if you don’t have one). Here are the instructions that you should give before ringing the bell:
Here is how the students should apply it:
This mindful exercise for the classroom is better for students in middle school and up. You can even apply it to college students or adults.
It can be used to help calm a busy mind, reduce stress, and bring our awareness to the “now”. It also helps improve concentration.
5 minutes for 5 senses.
This exercise is quite simple. All you have to do is close your eyes and think of (and focus on):
All things and activities require a certain amount of concentration and attention from us - from basic ones like noticing a blooming flower on your way to school or work, to more demanding ones like doing homework or attending a meeting at work. You or your children may be missing out on a lot of things if you have problems concentrating and paying attention.
MentalUP is an educational app with over 10+ million users worldwide. Children and adults can pick their age and areas that need improvement to form their personalized program.
Expressing your gratitude for things is not only good for mindfulness, but it will also help children have a more positive attitude towards life. This activity is best for students who will be comfortable enough to write down things such as 4th graders and up.
Writing down your gratitude for the day will help develop compassion, empathy and tolerance for others while giving a chance to reconsider your thoughts and actions throughout the day.
It will take about 5-10 minutes. It is important to do it every day and to assign a specific time for it. For example, it could be the first thing when the class starts, after lunch or a little before the end of the day.
There are so many beautiful things out there in nature that we just pass by without even noticing. Take your students out for a mini safari adventure where they will get to be a piece of it. And it’s not only for the little ones! This exercise can also provide mindfulness for high school students as one of the most preferred co-curricular activities.
This mindful safari which is among the most effective balance exercises for kids, will enable students to enjoy the present moment and appreciate other living beings around them. This way, they will inevitably arouse a feeling of calmness and relaxation.
It can take 10-30 minutes depending on the size of the area you’re discovering and the interesting things the children encounter.
🎁 BONUS: If you’re looking for more practices for students, check out our mind games! They will teach children patience, strategic thinking, and how to reduce stress and can help them improve their developmental skills. Also, kids can enjoy playing unblocked games for school by themselves safely.