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Mindfulness is something I work on every single day. Being present doesn’t come naturally for me. My mind is constantly on ten things at once and usually not the thing I’m currently doing. This post includes mindfulness exercises for kids that I first experienced during my Montessori training at MEIPN. My instructor used this exercise as an example of brain development and the idea of using real concrete objects in early learning environments. The exercise made quite an impact.
I have written a lot about teaching mindfulness to kids. Montessori’s peace curriculum brings this idea into the classroom – the idea of inner stillness. The Silence Work is a perfect example of one way Dr. Montessori encouraged this learning with children.
Mindfulness Exercises for Kids
She presented us with real oranges and asked us to describe these oranges. What words would you use? Juicy, smooth, cool, bumpy, stringy, sour, sweet, orange, etc. We came up with a long list of adjectives.Then she took the REAL orange away. She replaced it with a picture of a real orange. She then walked up to the white board and questioned our descriptors. Can we say this picture of an orange is “bumpy”? Every adjective that could not be used to describe the orange was erased from the board. As she continued replacing the item in our hands from picture, to fake play kitchen orange to cartoon/clip art picture of an orange, and so on, we discovered few descriptors remained in describing our initial beautiful orange.
Get it?
No problem was ever created in the same consciousness
that was used to create it. ~ Albert Einstein
Try this Easy Mindfulness Activity
Invite the child to the table, maybe at snack or meal time.
Hand an orange to the child
Ask the child to examine a food (we used an apple recently) using his eyes, ears, hands, nose, and mouth.
Invite the child to close his eyes as he examines the food.
Together come up with a list of adjectives describing the food.
I encourage you to try this exercise, too. I often find myself racing through meals, and, well, life. Taking time to slow down goes a long way with happiness and clarity.
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Marnie
About Marnie Craycroft
Marnie hails from Maine where she spent summers buried in sand and winters buried in snow. She is the daughter of a nearly four decade veteran of the public school systems. Teaching has always been a part of her life. She founded Carrots Are Orange in 2010.
Carrots Are Orange is a Montessori learning and living website for parents and teachers.
Marnie graduated from Wesleyan University in 1999 with a BA in Economics. She spent nearly a decade working in investment management. In 2006, she earned her MA in business from the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.
Marnie moved to the west coast in 1999 and currently lives in Boulder with her husband and three sons. She is Montessori trained. Her work has been featured on Apartment Therapy, Buzzfeed, PBS Kids, BabyCenter, the Melissa & Doug blog, Huffington Post, and WhattoExpect.com. Besides writing, passions include running (usually after her three sons), photography, and outdoor adventures.
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