mindful me

This week has been the final in the Mindful Me Series. We looked back on what we had covered over the term:
• What is mindfulness and how can it help me to understand my feelings
• Engaging our 5 senses to ground ourselves
• Mindful eating and drinking
• Affirmations
• Mindful listening
• Breath awareness
• Mindful movement
• Mindful walking
• Guided visualisations

It was lovely to chat a bit about how the children are using what they learn in the classes, in their daily lives outside of the lessons. Many opportunities present themselves to us each day for us to practise mindfulness. One little girl mentioned to me yesterday that I need to start adult classes because her mom needs mindfulness. Apparently, she gets irritated a lot! I had a little chuckle but it warmed my heart to see how the children understand that mindfulness is a life skill, not just an extra-mural that they do once a week. The connection between what is learnt in the classes and applying it to every day life often still needs to be encouraged with the children, but I am seeing more and more how they are finding their own way in using mindfulness every day to help them “do life”.

Over the course of the term, the children have practised some mindful artwork in each lesson. So, for this final lesson, we spent a bit more time on the mindful artwork. The children completed the animal pictures that they started last week and even though the purpose of mindful artwork is the process, not the results, the pictures created were amazing.

And an end of term lesson is not complete without a mindful eating exercise – it has become some what of a tradition! So, I made some of my delicious date balls for the kids to taste (and grapes for those who are not keen on dates). A couple of the kids asked me to please send the recipe to their moms, so here it is:
125g margarine
250g dates, finely chopped
65ml sugar
1 extra-large egg, whisked
1 packet of marie biscuits
100ml desiccated coconut

Melt the margarine over low heat. Add the dates, stir and heat until soft. Remove from the heat and add the sugar. Stir until dissolved. Add a little of the hot mixture to the whisked egg and stir. Add the egg mixture to the remaining date mixture and mix well. Add the Marie biscuits and mix. Allow to cool. Roll the cooled mixture into balls, then in coconut if desired.

A really lovely term covering a variety of mindfulness techniques for children. I hope your kids enjoyed the classes as much as I did!

Classes start again on 17th July and run until the 11th Sep.
Wishing you all a good winter break.