I have decided to carry on with the topic of mindfulness in the classroom for this inquiry post!This week in P.H.E class we learned about how to bring yoga into the classroom. One of those activities was to read the story Good Morning Yoga, by  Mariam Gates. It is a beautiful story that my cohort and I got to interact with that allowed us to follow along in the imagery and do yoga poses. After this class it made me curious about other books out there that could have the same effect of calm and mindfulness like Good Morning Yoga did so this blog post is dedicated to books I find that could be used in the classroom for mindfulness. 

I found this website which lists a ton of mindfulness books for children, and I am going to list below my favourite ones that I would add to my classroom library. 

A Handful of Quiet

by Thich Nhat Hanh

This book is written by Thich Nhat Hanh and that caught my eye because I am currently reading a book by him that I have mentioned in previous blog posts, so I was intrigued. This book helps kids connect with nature and increase their awareness, concentration, and calm using scripts, activities, and ideas that parents can try with children. Each of the four pebbles in the meditations represents something for children to visualize: a flower, a mountain, still water, and space.

Calm: Mindfulness for Kids

by Wynne Kinder

This book looks cool because it offers space for journaling to encourage important moments of reflection. It offers mindfulness activities that help kids become more appreciative of the world around them, giving them greater peace of mind.

Puppy Mind

by Andrew Jordan Nance, illustrated by Jim Durk

I think this book would be awesome for all age ranges  from the youngest of children to even adults, because who doesn’t love puppies! This book seems very easy to grasp for young readers as it explains that just like a puppy, our minds can wander to the future or dig up memories from the past. And just like yelling doesn’t work for training a puppy, neither does it work for calming our minds. But, if we take three deep breaths, it’s like giving our puppy brain a treat that helps us enjoy the present moment. This book seems very useful for introducing mindfulness and breath.

Look and Be Grateful

by Tomie dePaola

 I think gratitude is such a beautiful concept to teach at a young age, and so this book can help foster that in children. It is about a young boy who takes notice of the simple but profound beauties around him: a rising sun, a tiny ladybug, a ripe orange, and so much more. I want to read it!

Although there are so many great books out there on mindfulness, The books mentioned above really spoke to me as I made connections between my mindfulness journey and how to foster mindfulness in a classroom. The final book that I want for my classroom library was introduced to our cohort in the first semester. It is called Breathe Like a Bear by Kira Willey. It is filled with super cute breathing practices that have so much imagery, I was immediately drawn to it when it was passed around in our class! 

Photo by Ashley Hall  is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Thank you for reading, and I hope this blog post gave some of you ideas for bringing mindfulness into the classroom!