Healthy Mind Space
  • Home
  • About
  • Coaching for K-4 Students
  • Educators
  • Parents
  • Resources
    • YouTube Mindful Minutes
    • Just Breathe
  • Connect
    • Calendar
    • Register + Shop >
      • Shop >
        • Women’s Athletic Tank
        • Women’s Casual Top
  • Blog

Mindful Agreements (Rules) for Kids

9/8/2018

0 Comments

 
“The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge. Our apparatus for educating the senses offers the child a key to guide his explorations of the world…”
~Dr. Maria Montessori
Picture
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have searched “mindful classroom rules” on almost every search engine out there this summer. Scrambling to add the finishing touches to the newly designed PreK room for the year, I searched frantically - again - for a set of those mindful classroom rules to print and pop onto the wall. Because, well...why reinvent the wheel if something is already out there. But, what if it isn’t? What if you have to actually be one with your own mind space and create your own. That was the case and what a blessing in disguise it has become. The answer was right there in front of me the whole time! I just needed to be present in my own room for a moment to realize so.

Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting offers the first gateway to understanding the world and the interactions that take place between others. Using the senses to guide agreements, or rules, for student interactions within their environments (home, school, community, etc) can offer a familiar anchor as kiddos enter new stimulating situations. That is why many educators of young learners use senses as the baseline for creating such “classroom rules.” As a PreK teacher of 4 & 5 year olds, I do the same.

In the past, our rules have been the following:
  • Looking Eyes
  • Listening Ears
  • Quiet Voices
  • Helping Hands
  • Walking Feet

This year’s class agreements are similar, but have much more depth and meaning.

Life experiences all come down to a stimulus and our response to it. So, why not integrate the rules and a mindful pause between the stimulus and response. With that, I dappled in organizing the sense-based rules into two groups (stimulus and response) and tweaked.

This is what I came up with…


I can not even begin to rave about how it has not only anchored my own teaching intentions, but how the students respond to the relatable language. It offers a self-regulatory guide to explorations of the inner and outer worlds that the kiddos are soaking in. It all just makes sense. At least for us…;-)

​Teachers, parents, caregivers-please feel free to give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Enjoy the new school year! 

With gratitude,
Christy Lynn

Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    the blog space

    Picture
    Picture
    ​I'm obsessed. This is fabulous. LOVE that you are doing this. The new way of being a student forces us to think outside the box and approach how we teach more dynamically.
    ~Derek, Father of 2 and Elementary School Principal


    Author

    Just a girl with a dream to collectively build a healthy mind space for children, while creating a healthier mind space for ourselves. 

    Picture

    Archives

    April 2020
    January 2020
    August 2019
    July 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018

    Categories

    All
    30 Day Challenge
    Adapt To Change
    Community
    Creative Activity
    Education
    Elementary
    Emotions
    Focus
    Health & Wellness
    Holiday
    Kids
    Kindness
    Language
    Love
    Mindfulness
    Mindful Parenting
    Mindful Schools Education
    Parenting
    Pause
    Prekindergarten
    Preschool
    Problem Solving
    Relationships
    School Violence
    Screen Time
    Self Care
    Social Emotional Learning
    Teach
    Technology
    Toddlers
    Wellness

    RSS Feed

    Copyright Healthy Mind Space 2019
Picture

Healthy Mind Space offers mindfulness coaching and workshops to professional educators, preschools & childcare centers, and families throughout the Rochester, NY area. By practicing mindfulness in our everyday lives, and through intentional interactions in our classrooms, I believe we can help kids develop a greater capacity for kindness, compassion, positivity, self-confidence and the opportunity to achieve their full potential.
Picture

Copyright Healthy Mind Space 2019. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy

  • Home
  • About
  • Coaching for K-4 Students
  • Educators
  • Parents
  • Resources
    • YouTube Mindful Minutes
    • Just Breathe
  • Connect
    • Calendar
    • Register + Shop >
      • Shop >
        • Women’s Athletic Tank
        • Women’s Casual Top
  • Blog