November Social Skills Lesson

Mindfulness

What do you think it means to be mindful?

Your brain is a powerful part of YOU!

Amygdala: Security Guard (Guard Dog)
Helps protect us
Flight, fight, freeze
Hippocampus: Memory Saver
Helps us learn and remember
Chronic stress can shrink it
Prefrontal Cortex (PFC): Wise Owl
Helps us make good decisions
Observes, analyzes and remembers
Thinking, planning, reasoning, impulse control

Has a teacher ever said to you...

• You need to calm down
• Time to focus
• You need to pay attention

Did you know?

You are going to learn the skills of calming down BEFORE you get upset. Mindfulness helps you before you feel sad or mad.

Mindful Listening - Learning to Be Mindful

30 seconds of mindful listening:

• Sit quietly with eyes closed and just listen to

       the sounds around them.  

Just Breathe

by Julie Bayer Salzman & Josh Salzman

Click here to watch "Just Breathe"

Core Practice

Combining Listening and Breathing

using resonant sound.

Step 1:

Raise your hand when

you no longer hear the sound

Step 2: Practice for 30-60 seconds

Where Do You Feel The Breath?

• Put hand on stomach and breath

• Put hand on chest and breath

• Put hand over nose and breath

Practice

• Mindfulness is best practiced “daily.”
• 3 minutes/day is better than 20 minutes/once a week.
• By giving attention to positive experiences, we rewire the brain toward healthy habits of thinking and feeling and away from fight, flight and freeze.

What does Mindfulness mean to you?

October Social Skills Lesson

Spreading Kindness

Kindergarten:

 Each kindergarten class will be reading the story "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?". They will discuss what it means to be kind and what kindness looks like. 

1st and 2nd Grade:

 Each 1st and 2nd grade classroom will be reading the story "What Does it mean to be kind?"

 We will be discussing what it means to be kind and what kindness looks like. Then the students will be designing a flower and writing an act of kindness on their flower. Their flowers will be added to our kindness garden. 

  

3rd, 4th and 5th Grade:

 Each student in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade will be reading the story "The Invisible Boy".

 After we read and discuss the story with the students, we will be talk about what it means to be kind and how important it is to treat others the way that you want to be treated. 

BEFORE YOU SPEAK

THINK AND BE SMART

IT'S HARD TO FIX

A WRINKLED HEART

 The students will then do an activity where they sketch a picture of themselves inside a heart. We will discuss examples that people may say or do to hurt someone. Each time the students give an example,they will wrinkle their paper a little bit. Once their paper is all wrinkled, we will then talk about acts of kindness. For each example given, the students will try to flatten out their paper. 

 At the end of the lesson, the students will notice that no matter how many acts of kindness are done, the wrinkles remain in their heart. So it is important to think before you speak or act because you don't know what your actions or words will do to someone else.