Making Compassion a Habit
This life-sized version of Slides and Ladders prompts children to reflect on feelings associated with different real-life scenarios. Combining outdoor time with chalk art, this Mindful Recess helps kids understand it’s okay to sit with difficult feelings.
Nature and art make perfect companions in this sensory outdoor project. First you’ll use your keen observation skills to collect natural materials outside. Next, you’ll use those items to create a Nature Paint Brush. Finally, you’ll paint beautiful Kindness Cards to send to seniors, delivery people, and the people you love and care about. Let’s get started!
Using a lightly weighted eye pillow is a wonderful way to release anxiety by stimulating the vagus nerve and slowing the heart rate. Here’s how to make your own eye pillow, either for yourself or as part of a Peace Kit for someone else, plus a simple sleep meditation to help you relax and rest.
With the pandemic keeping us inside more hours than I’m used to, walking outside has become a necessity – and not just physically.
Taking a Rainbow Walk is a simple, fun way to practice mindfulness with Littles using our sense of sight. Focusing on the world through a single sense is a powerful way to anchor our awareness...
This activity directs us to use our sense of sight to uncover what might not be readily seen. Step outside — or if the weather’s not exactly cooperating, you can try this indoors. Taking a picture of each find is a great way to tally up how many hearts you see.
Encourage your little one to look high and low, behind and under different objects: does the bark on that tree grow in a cool pattern? What’s under that pile of leaves?
If snow currently blankets your world, it might be more challenging to find heart shapes. Instead, create treasures for each other to find. Gather sticks of different lengths and lay them out in a heart or use one to draw a heart in the snow. Paint flat rocks with colorful hearts to leave around the neighborhood for others to find or if it’s a clear day, search out heart-shaped cloud formations.
When kids turn on their powers of observation, they often come up with delightful insights and share a perspective we might miss. On a recent treasure hunt with my 7-year-old daughter she showed me how simply changing your perspective reveals the unexpected.
A dormant vine clinging to the side of our house didn’t seem like much at first, but when my daughter noticed the way a thin branch curved and looped, she adjusted her point of view until it blended with the rest of the leafless plant to look like a heart (see the photo above for a sample of our finds and a hand-made creation).
Now, when we step outside, we see “found hearts” all around us and point out new ones when we walk the dog or play in the park. Noticing new hearts as the seasons change is especially exciting and motivating. Enjoy your heart-shaped hunt!
Besides enjoying the benefits of fresh air, being outdoors together is a great time to be in the moment with your child and notice the ways nature helps us use our senses to connect with the environment.
How to Tap Into Your Five Senses to Find Peace and Be Present (Shape)
In this season of excitement, busyness, parties, shopping, and stress, it is easy to get lost in the holiday chaos. If you, like I, are in need of some inspiration for slowing down and reconnecting with yourself, look no further than to nine-year-old Sara Asker.
An Outdoor Sound Hunt is exactly what it sounds like: you walk, hike or sit with your kiddos outside, stay (relatively) quiet and try to "hunt" or notice all the different sounds you hear. This...
This activity is a variation on the popular ice-breaker game, Toss the Beach Ball, and is wonderful for children of any age range as well as adults. The idea is to inspire young children to think of the small things in their lives they’re grateful for.
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