SEL Time

-Go to YouTube.  Find meditation music.  

-Have children sit in floor facing you

-Children close their eyes and put one hand on their belly.  Breathe in and say in your head “one’’ breathe out and say in your head “out”.  Continue until you get to five and then start over. Tell students you are looking for students who are following directions and doing their belly breathing correctly.  Start music and guide students through the belly breathing.  Start out with just one minute per day, twice a day.  Once in the morning, once in the afternoon.  Build up to 5 minutes twice per day increasing only by 30 seconds per week.  Once students have started participating in belly breathing correctly, stop guiding them and start giving them positive affirmations to think about as they breathe in.  Have them think of any negative feelings/emotions they may have and pretend they are blowing them out of their body.  

-Class Dojo (free teacher account required) has a variety of related videos.  Start out with Chapter 1 under Big Ideas.  This program shows students videos about building their brain through challenges, and ends with a class discussion.  You can then move on to the other chapters which talk about facing challenges head on, not giving up, and learning to ask for help when needed.  Have children then self-reflect.  Ask them how they feel afterwards.  Did they participate correctly?

-GoNoodle (free teacher account required) has a variety of breathing activities.  Try Channel: Flow or Category: Movement Type: Breathe. 

-Challenge students to create Belly Breathing posters to teach other students how to belly breath correctly.  Posters can be printed and shared with other classrooms or posted in school bathrooms and hallways.  Posters can be created and shared using Google Slides or Google Docs (PowerPoint or Word).