Mindfulness is the use of the five senses to interact physically and non-judgmentally with your surroundings. When you do anything with mindfulness awareness, you do it with all your attention and energy.

Anything can be done with mindfulness, even, something as simple as eating your breakfast. For example, you can guide your kid to pay a keen interest to the texture of the food. Ask them how the kind of food they are eating keeps their body healthy.

Mindfulness for children is empowering. It helps them learn how to cope with stress and manage it should it occur. Below are some simple mindfulness activities for young children as recommend by thaiairvn.

Mindful breathing

This simple activity helps bring back the mind to the significance of our breath. When stressed out, we take shallow breaths. Contrary, breaths from deep down the belly help us calm down. While seated or standing, guide your students to take deep slow breaths for 5 minutes. Let them exhale slowly with their hands placed on their stomachs to feel the air moving in and out.

Tense and release muscle exercise

This exercise helps to relax the mind and body by tensing and releasing the large muscle groups in our bodies. Here, guide the child to gently tense and release every muscle group. Make sure they are not straining too much.

Color breathing

Ask your learners to visualize a color that is relaxing and another color that shows anger, sadness or worry. Guide them to close their eyes and imagine they are breathing in the relaxing color. While they exhale, ask them to imagine they are letting out the ‘bad’ color and its getting out of their bodies.

Music appreciation

If you didn’t know, singing along your favorite song does count as a mindfulness exercise. Pick a song that your learners enjoy and ask them to sing along as it plays. Ask them how the song makes them feel. Does it arouse any emotions? What comes to their mind when they hear it play? Does the song remind them of anything or anyone? It is a good or a bad feeling?

If you are looking for Mindfulness Meditation training please visit The Mindfulness Academy of Asia (MAA) is a new subsidiary school of The American School of Bangkok, specializing in the teaching and learning of mindfulness in education.