Are you sitting comfortably? Have you emptied your mind of any obtrusive thoughts? Have you tuned out the world around you, allowing you to just relax and immerse yourself in the world of the Box Primary School Blog? Good- then you’re ready to find out about our week celebrating Children’s Mental Health Week. Each class took part in their own mental health activity and assembly. 

Ash Class were busy on Friday creating their own sensory calming bottles. Once shaken, they can watch the objects inside calming and settling; just like how their minds can calm and settle if they are feeling upset, angry or anxious.

Oak Class have been taking part in calming time: curtains closed, lights off, a calming focus on the board (sometimes a candle) and time to relax, breathe and empty their minds of worries.

We have also used Children’s Mental Health Week as a way of introducing classroom mindfulness. Mindfulness takes many forms: it could be taking notice of the world around us, paying attention to our senses, taking time out just to relax and breathe or making sure that we celebrate our successes instead of dwelling on our mistakes. Our eco-committee has come up with a list of 5 simple mindfulness activities that we can all do in class - training our brains to be healthy, as PE trains our bodies to be healthy. They have also designed 5 posters for us to have displayed in our class to remind us of what to do. These are: five conscious breaths, body scan, the 5 senses, 2-minute appreciation and relaxing reading. As we explore each one in turn, the children will then be able to pick which they would like to do during mindfulness time.

Take some time now to reflect on your day. What have you done well? What are you proud of? What success would you like to share? What wonderful things have happened to you? First mindfulness step completed.