Looking for the best children's books about mindfulness? Read on for my top picks!

Click to jump to…

• Choosing Children's Books About Mindfulness
• Children's Books About Breathing
• Children's Books About Mindful Bodies
• Children's Books About Being Present
• Children's Books About Positive Affirmations
• Children's Books About Meditation
• Mindfulness In The Classroom

Choosing Children's Books About Mindfulness

Mindfulness is such an important tool for students to use. There are so many benefits to mindfulness in the classroom, but there just aren't that many resources available yet that are made just for students. (That's why I created these Mindfulness Lessons!)

The good news is, there are more and more children's books about social emotional learning available these days. But it can be hard to know which ones are the best for your students…

How should you go about choosing children's books about mindfulness? Here are a few tips:

• Look for books that have clear strategies that students can practice themselves. Giving children explicit examples of mindfulness that they can use in their own lives is so helpful!
• Look for characters that your students can relate to. It's so important to expose children to characters that are like themselves (but also important to expose them to characters that are different – we need a mix of windows and mirrors!)
• Choose books that have full class exercises you can do together! These are great for brain breaks and transitions between lessons, and create an easy way to squeeze some mindfulness activities into the school day.
• Find books that you could weave into your academic subjects. So often, we can create a writing response or some comprehension work around any read aloud. That makes it so much easier to include social emotional learning lessons as a natural part of the school day – perfect!

But guess what?

I've already done the hard work and searched for children's books about mindfulness that are perfect for the classroom! Read on to see my top choices…

Children's Books About Breathing

Breath is a key component of mindfulness, and it can help students in so many ways. Breathing helps us regulate our emotions, reduce stress, and calm our bodies. These next children's books about mindfulness focus on ways students can use their breathing to help get grounded.

My Magic Breath

A great book for helping students visualize calm breathing and using it in difficult situations.

Alphabreaths

A fun book of ABCs with different breathing exercises that are simple and easy for kids to try.

Breathing Makes It Better

This book walks students through the process of identifying challenging situations and using their breath to help them.

Children's Books About Mindful Bodies

Children are active, physical beings. But many students are still learning how to regulate and control their bodies. These next children's books about mindfulness help students calm their bodies and control their movements. These contain some great mindfulness exercises for students to use in the classroom!

Mindful Movements

This book contains ten easy mindfulness activities that are great for brain breaks and for practicing moving mindfully with your body.

Peaceful Piggy Yoga

This is a sweet book talking about yoga, the benefits of practicing mindfulness and yoga, as well as some basic yoga poses that children can learn and practice.

Breathe Like A Bear

This book contains 30 mindfulness exercises for kids – some breathing and some movement – to practice with your students. Great for pulling out and trying one or two between lessons or right after recess!

Children's Books About Being Present

With our fast-paced lives and the constant presence of technology, it's hard for all of us to remember to be present and appreciate the present moment. Teaching mindfulness for kids can help students learn to be present, a skill they can take with them as they grow up. These next children's books about mindfulness help students be present and aware of what's happening around them.

I Am Peace

This mindfulness book examines what it means to go through life with mindfulness, being present in each moment.

What Does It Mean To Be Present?

A great introduction to the concept of being present in each moment.

Charlotte and the Quiet Place

This mindfulness children's book examines the importance of being able to find calm and get grounded in the midst of our busy world.

Children's Books About Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations are gaining more and more popularity as a tool for helping self esteem in children. A big pieces of mindfulness for kids is helping them identify negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. This set of children's books about mindfulness provides positive self affirmations that students can use to help them create a more positive self perception.

My Magical Words

This mindfulness book explains how we can talk to ourselves and what affirmations are. It gives many examples of positive affirmations.

It's Great To Be Me!

A great book full of self affirmations for students to repeat and practice.

Mind Bubbles

An easy-to-understand mindfulness children's book that shows how our thoughts come and go, and how we can practice noticing them.

Children's Books About Meditation

Wait… can you do meditation with students? Absolutely! Meditation doesn't have to be a woo-woo or spiritual exercise. It's really just a practice of focusing your mind on something. You can do a meditation as a quick mindfulness activity during the school day. Some simple meditations might be asking your students to picture a certain object in their mind, or having them think of a special memory that makes them happy.

These next children's books about mindfulness are great for introducing your students to meditation and explaining some of the benefits.

Leo Learns To Meditate

Leo is a very relatable character who doesn’t understand the value of meditation. He learns how and why it can be helpful.

Meditate With Me

This sweet book walks through the steps to get your body and mind ready for meditation.

Imaginations

A collection of relaxation stories that are fun to use as quick classroom mindfulness activities with your students.

Mindfulness In The Classroom

I hope these mindfulness children's books have given you some mindfulness classroom ideas to try out with your students. Just remember you can start small – any mindfulness activities you can start out with will be helpful! Once you get started, it will become more and more easy and natural to have mindfulness in the classroom.

If you want more activity ideas, check out How To Use Mindfulness In the Classroom: A Complete Guide.

Which mindfulness children's book are you going to try out first? Let me know in the comments!
xoxo
Laura

Resources For You

Articles For You

15 Friendship Picture Books Your Students Will Love

Essential Social Emotional Learning Activities To Help Your Students Thrive

The Best Growth Mindset Classroom Ideas For Primary Grades

9 Amazing Children’s Books For Self Regulation In Learning Environments

The post 15 Children’s Books About Mindfulness Your Students Will Love appeared first on Love Grows Learning.

The research is very clear – social emotional learning absolutely helps students. Studies have shown that social emotional learning activities can…

• Improve academic performance
• Reduce problematic classroom behaviors
• Help students manage stress

Sign me up!

But how can we possibly fit more into our jam-packed schedules? And how can teachers find the time to research and prep these important social emotional learning lessons? I've got you covered.

Read on for the social emotional learning topics your students need most, and fun SEL activities you can easily squeeze into your week!

Click to jump to…

• Social Emotional Learning Topics Your Students Need
• Social Emotional Learning Activities For The Classroom
  • Growth Mindset
  • Social Skills
  • Friendship Skills
  • Mindfulness
  • Celebrating Diversity
  • Self Love
  • Gratitude
• Social Emotional Learning Lessons

Social Emotional Learning Topics Your Students Need

Social emotional learning for the classroom sounds great and all, but how can we teachers actually put it into action? There are SO many SEL topics out there, so I've done the work for you and selected the ones that students will most benefit from in a classroom setting.

While there are many other topics that would still be valuable, these social emotional learning lessons focus on skills that will help students thrive at school. These are the ideas that will help students improve academically, manage their behaviors, interact positively with faculty and peers, and build their self esteem as learners.

Here are 7 essential topics for social emotional learning activities that we can teach and reinforce with students. (Click each topic heading to jump to activities for that topic!)

1. Growth Mindset: Growth mindset is so important for learning, as it helps students tackle challenges and build the belief that they can learn new things. Social emotional learning activities with growth mindset in mind are a must-have for the classroom.
2. Social Skills: Social skills help students self-regulate in the classroom and interact with their peers in a positive way. Focusing on social skills saves us valuable time in the long run, since it helps students build more independence and need less help from teachers when problems come up.
3. Friendship Skills: Conflict resolution, making new friends, being inclusive, and practicing kindness are all important friendship skills that students need to feel happy and safe at school.
4. Mindfulness: Studies have shown that mindfulness can reduce stress and increase happiness with all people, and that includes kids too! Mindfulness practices are also a great way to help your students find calm after an exciting task.
5. Celebrating Diversity: Our classrooms are full of students who come from all different backgrounds. They bring a variety of life experiences to school with them, and it's so important we honor those differences, and also teach students to appreciate those differences in each other.
6. Self-Love: Student self esteem can be a huge roadblock in learning and cooperating. We can help students practice self-love and positive mental health skills.
7. Gratitude: Practicing gratitude actually makes us happier! And gratitude can make our classroom more positive spaces.

Social Emotional Learning Activities For The Classroom

I'm sharing some of my all-time favorite social emotional learning activities for the classroom. The ideal situation would be to have one day a week with a time block set aside for SEL lessons. However, I know this can be hard to swing for some teachers.

Fear not – these activities can be squeezed into your morning meeting, a transition between lessons, or even an add on to a read aloud. You don't have to get fancy!

If you start to get overwhelmed at the thought of researching, planning, and prepping social emotional learning lessons, just remember – there are lots of great resources out there already! (And that's why I created this year long Social Emotional Learning Curriculum – that you don't have to waste your time reinventing the wheel.)

Growth Mindset Activities

Growth mindset is a great place to start with your social emotional learning activities. Here are a couple of my absolute favorite activities to get you started!

Fixed Vs. Growth Mindset

Teaching students to understand the differences between a fixed versus growth mindset is the beginning of building a strong growth mindset. This social emotional learning activity is a must-have for teachers who want to help their students build persistence.

This anchor chart is a great visual for students as they are learning about fixed mindset and growth mindset.

Positive Self Talk

Learning to speak kindly to ourselves is a huge SEL topic. Luckily, there are many amazing social emotional learning activities centered on this very concept. Help your students understand the importance of speaking kindly to our minds by giving concrete examples, modeling frequently, and doing fun social emotional learning activities like this cute fortune teller to help students put it into practice!

(Looking for more growth mindset activities? Check out this Growth Mindset Lessons and Activities resource.)

Social Skills Activities

Social skills are so important to academic success, yet teachers rarely get the time or support they need to be able to teach them. Here are some engaging social skill activities that you can do with your class anytime to start their learning:

Self-Regulation

A student's ability to self regulate will contribute a lot to their ability to succeed in the classroom. This group activity is a great way to give students concrete examples of ways they can recenter themselves when big emotions take over.

Setting Boundaries

Learning how to set boundaries can help students feel safe and empowered when difficult situations arise. Here are two social emotional learning activities that can help students understand their “magical powers” of boundary setting.

(Looking for more social skills activities? Check out this Social Skills Lessons and Activities resource.)

Friendship Skills Activities

As teachers, we end up spending a lot of our time putting out fires between students and navigating friendship conflicts. Some of the most important social emotional learning activities we can do are lessons that help our students build independence with friendship skills.

Making New Friends

Many students need support with making new friends. This flipbook helps students with concrete strategies they can practice and put in action to make new friends.

Navigating Friendship Conflicts

Even the best of friends have arguments and disagreements. Students can learn the best ways to handle these conflicts with modeling, read alouds, and social stories. These social stories are a great social emotional learning activity for helping your students build their friendship skills.

(Looking for more friendship activities? Check out this Friendship Lessons and Activities resource.)

Mindfulness Activities

As more research is done, the benefits of mindfulness continue to be uncovered – not just for adults, but for kids too! Practicing mindfulness helps us be present, eliminate stress, and navigate big feelings – all things that students can use practice with. Here are a few of my favorite social emotional learning activities for teaching mindfulness to kids.

Breathing Exercises

Breath plays a very important part in regulating our emotions. These fun breathing exercises help students become aware of their breathing and give some tools to try when they need to self-regulate.

Yoga

Get your students moving with these simple yoga moves. Movement is a great tool for helping students reset their bodies and their minds. You could post this in your calm corner, or use it for brain breaks during your school day.

(Looking for more mindfulness activities? Check out this Mindfulness Lessons and Activities resource.)

Celebrating Diversity

Learning to accept others and embrace differences is a skill that we should be teaching children as early as possible. These social emotional learning activities are aimed at helping students celebrate their uniqueness, understand differences between themselves and others, and honor the diversity in their classroom and school.

Celebrating Differences

This anchor chart display is a wonderful visual to help students understand that differences are beautiful.

Different But The Same

This activity helps normalize differences by having students identify things that are unique and things that are the same about their tablemates and themselves.

(Looking for more diversity activities? Check out this Celebrating Diversity Lessons and Activities resource.)

Self-Love

More than ever, students need support with positive mental health and self love. This is an important piece of social emotional learning that should be done at school.

Here are a few ideas for social emotional learning activities for kids to practice self love:

Affirmation Station

This mini affirmation station is a fun craft to help students practice positive messages for themselves.

Taking Care Of Me

An important social emotional learning activity for students to help them reflect on ways they can take care of themselves and their mental health when things get tough.

(Looking for more self-love activities? Check out this Self Love Lessons and Activities resource.)

Gratitude

Practicing gratitude has many benefits, and it can help students social emotional well-being at school. There are lots of gratitude activities you can do with students – here are a couple to get you started!

Gratitude Journal

This simple gratitude journal for students is an easy way to incorporate gratitude into your school day.

Grateful To Be Me

Help students reflect on the things they can be grateful for in this fun social emotional learning craft.

(Looking for more gratitude activities? Check out this Gratitude Lessons and Activities resource.)

Social Emotional Learning Activities For Students

I hope these ideas about social emotional learning and social skills have given you some inspiration to try out some SEL activities with your students. Remember, these are lifelong skills, so your students aren't going to master them in one lesson. It will take many discussions, real-life experiences, and loving examples for students to build up these skills.

If you feel inspired to dive in and make social emotional learning a regular part of your classroom, then you're ready for the Social Emotional Learning Curriculum. It has 7 units and a whole school year's worth of lessons. They're research-based and easy to implement so you can do this important SEL work without adding more prep and planning to your plate.

Which social emotional learning activities are you going to try out? Let me know in the comments!
xoxo
Laura

Resources For You

Articles For You

10 Growth Mindset For Kids Activities Your Students Will Love

The Top Friendship Skill That Your Students Need

11 Fantastic Week of Kindness Ideas To Try In Your Classroom

How To Use Mindfulness In the Classroom: A Complete Guide

The post Essential Social Emotional Learning Activities To Help Your Students Thrive appeared first on Love Grows Learning.

The world of education is becoming increasingly stressful for students and educators. If you're like me, you're wondering – what can we do to help?

Practicing mindfulness activities in the classroom can help students alleviate stress, improve mental health, and have an overall more positive experience at school. So what have we got to lose?

Ready to learn how to use mindfulness in the classroom? Read on for the ultimate guide!

Click to jump to…

• The Importance Of Mindfulness In The Classroom – the WHY
• Getting Started With Mindfulness In The Classroom – the HOW
• Mindfulness Classroom Ideas – the WHAT

The Importance Of Mindfulness In The Classroom – the WHY

Mindfulness in the classroom has been shown to have many positive benefits for students. Studies have shown that it can… (2)

• Help combat the negative effects of stress
• Reduce negative behaviors in the classroom
• Improve student academic performance
• Increase engagement during school lessons

Sounds pretty good, right? And on top of that, mindfulness can help us teachers as well.

When we practice mindfulness alongside our students, it can help teachers create a more positive learning environment, communicate more clearly, and manage student behaviors more effectively. (3)

With all these benefits, it's a wonder that mindfulness isn't a required part of the school day…!

If you're getting any pushback from families or admin about using mindfulness in your classroom, I've linked my sources at the bottom of this article. Show them those articles – the research is undeniable.

Getting Started With Mindfulness In The Classroom – the HOW

Okay, so you're on board with using mindfulness for your classroom. But how exactly can you get started? Good news – it's actually much easier than you would think.

I've got 5 guideposts to help you jump in with teaching mindfulness to your students.

1. Start small. 5 minutes a day is plenty to start with mindfulness. Or every other day. Or once a week. Whatever feels doable for you. Don't feel like you have to do anything big or elaborate that will throw off your academic pacing or get in the way of your schedule. 5 minutes is all you need.
2. Repeat yourself. Mindfulness isn't mastered after one try. A simple mindfulness exercise can be used again and again and still have plenty of benefits. This is good news for teachers, because it means we don't need a super long list of mindfulness ideas. Having four or five mindfulness practices that we do with our students and repeat is just fine. In fact, the more they're repeated, the deeper they're learned.
3. Routine it. Any time we are trying to incorporate something new into our day, it's so helpful to make it part of a routine. Find a time of day that you could tack on a five minute mindfulness exercise, and stick with it. It might be at the end of your morning circle, right after recess, or in the transition between two academic lessons.
4. Uncomfortable is okay. These kind of exercises can feel uncomfortable or silly to anyone doing them for the first time, so don't be surprised if your students express that! Embrace their reactions and assure them that feeling uncomfortable is normal. Praise them for giving it a go and for trying something new. In time, it won't feel weird.
5. Don't reinvent the wheel. There are so many easy mindfulness exercises and lessons out there. Don't feel like you need to go down an internet rabbit hole to find them. I'm sharing my favorite ones below.

Mindfulness Classroom Ideas – the WHAT

Alright, now we're getting to the good stuff. Here are some concrete examples of mindfulness activities you can literally try out tomorrow with your students. These are easy to create on your own, but if you want them planned, prepped, and ready to print, you can get them right here in my Mindfulness Curriculum.

Here are some of my favorite mindfulness lesson to teach in the classroom:

1. Mindful Breathing

Breathing is an extremely important part of mindfulness. It's a great place to start with students, because it doesn't feel overwhelming.

There are lots of simple breathing exercises intended to help students focus on their breath. Here are a couple you could try:

In bubble breathing, students breathe in for 5 and then out for 5, pretending they are blowing a big bubble as they breathe out.

In star breathing, students trace their finger around a star, alternating breathing in and out on each side.

2. Mindful Bodies

We can help students be aware of their bodies with simple movements paired with breath. This chart shows some examples of basic body positions that can help us bring awareness to our breath and body.

Have fun with these! Encourage students to try the different poses – the first time will be full of giggles and wobbles, and that's okay. As you use them more during movement breaks or morning circle, your students will get used to them.

Eventually, you can encourage deep breathing and even closed eyes to help your students connect with their bodies and breathing.

3. Being Present

It's human nature to worry about the past and the future, and this is certainly true of our students.

Learning how to be grounded in the present is a very helpful mindfulness activity you can try with your students.

This simple exercise – 5 Fingers To Be Present – is one example of helping students be present and focus on what's around them.

• First, students notice 5 things that they can see around them.
• Then, they try to focus on 4 things they can feel in their current position.
• Next, they find 3 things they can hear in their surroundings.
• Then, they try to focus on 2 things they can smell.
• And finally, they notice 1 thing they can taste.

This exercise is a great tool for de-escalating a student or for refocusing a group.

4. Self Affirmations

A big piece of mindfulness is being aware of the thoughts that pop into our minds throughout the day. We can help our students fill their minds with positive thoughts instead of negative thoughts.

Self affirmations are a great way to start training our minds to think positively. Starting the day with self affirmations can be a positive way to kick off the school day with a bit of mindfulness.

You can also let students have a little affirmations display where they can easily see these positive “I am” statements throughout the school day.

5. Mindful Meditations

While the word “meditations” may feel overwhelming, it doesn't have to be. There are plenty of simple guided meditations you can do with your class. In fact, there are a number of wonderful children's books with collections of these. You can pull these out to do between lessons, after recess, or at the end of the school day.

Another meditation activity is calm coloring. Put on some calming music, and give your students 5 minutes of silent, mindful coloring. You'll be surprised at how beneficial a little break like this can be!

Now You Know How To Use Mindfulness In The Classroom

I hope you are feeling confident and ready to start using mindfulness in your classroom. The benefits are undeniable, and it's a tool that you can keep in your teacher belt for years and years to come.

Which part of mindfulness are you most excited about? Let me know in the comments!
xoxo
Laura

(1) Anxiety & Depression Association of America

(2) Harvard University Study

(3) University of California, Berkeley

Resources For You

Articles For You

10 Growth Mindset For Kids Activities Your Students Will Love

How To Create A Positive And Supportive Culture In Classroom Communities

9 Amazing Ideas to Teach the Importance of Social Emotional Learning in Your Classroom

The post How To Use Mindfulness In the Classroom: A Complete Guide appeared first on Love Grows Learning.