Using Your Senses to be Mindful

This unit helps a child to understand and practice mindfulness. To practice mindfulness is to purposefully pay attention to your breathing, feelings, senses, or actions in the present moment. When a child is mindful, they increase their ability to regulate emotions, manage stress, and self-motivate. Print the Mindful Moments cards and  fitFlow yoga cards to practice mindfulness with your students.

Describe an item in your classroom using your five senses. Can the students guess what you are talking about?

To use this with your students click here.

Five Senses and Feelings

Present the slideshow to guide students through a mindful activity using their senses. Allow ample time between slides to encourage mindful thoughts.

Identify Mindful Actions

Tell students that whenever they pause and pay attention to something on purpose, they are being mindful. When they looked carefully at the picture, they were being mindful. Discuss how they used their senses to be mindful when they observed the forest picture.

Check for Understanding: How can you use your senses to be mindful? (Pause and think about how something looks, sounds, smells, tastes, and feels.)

Use Your Senses

Imagine you are in the forest. Think about what you would see, smell, taste, touch, and hear as you color the picture. How do you feel? 

Today we took a moment to be mindful and looked carefully at a picture. When can you pause to be mindful and use your senses later today?