Peace Project with Teacher Amy
/This week we began a long term focus on fostering peace within ourselves and within our community. Our focus will start with finding inner peace through mindfulness and breathing practices. Next, we will build on those practices to foster community peace within the classroom by developing conflict resolution skills and paying attention to ways we care for each other. Then, we will think outside the classroom about acts of kindness we can do to foster peace to our larger communities.
At circle time, we each took turns watering our small plants and discussed how it felt to take care of something growing. Friends shared that we need to be gentle with the plants because they are small baby plants. We thought about how we take care of our garden by paying attention to the water, sun, and soil it needs. We talked about how big and strong the plants can get with our care.
We then practiced taking care of ourselves through breathing. We practiced taking big breaths together using feathers to help visualize our breath. Friends felt their bellies fill with air as they inhaled and then exhaled onto a feather, watching their feather float in the air from their breath. After a few deep breaths, friends shared that their bodies feel “good” and “happy.”
We are adapting parts of our focus on peace from the Kindness Curriculum written by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds. Here’s a link to the full curriculum: https://www.mindfulmomentsinedu.com/uploads/1/8/8/1/18811022/kindnesscurriculum.pdf
