Mindful Moments Blog

Virtual Calming Corner

Mindful Moments Blog

Virtual Calming Corner Teaches Kids About Emotions Playfully

How do we teach social-emotional learning (SEL) to our children?
Social-Emotional Learning Starts At Home

Mindful Moments Blog

Social-Emotional Learning Starts At Home

Students who are self-aware and able to understand their emotions have a greater ability to relate to others, make decisions, and excel academically. Here is how to help your child develop social-emotional skills at home. 
Social-Emotional Learning Is Key in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Mindful Moments Blog

Social-Emotional Learning Is Key in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Social-emotional instruction has been proven beneficial during normal times; it is now an urgent need. Here are 5 SEL activities for the classroom and 5 for home. Together, we can bridge the school to home gap. 
Children Don't Have Standardized Minds. Let's Quit Testing Them As If They Do.

Mindful Moments Blog

Children Don't Have Standardized Minds. Let's Quit Testing Them As If They Do.

Our kids who are daydreaming or squirming in their seats or not listening or who show poor impulse control are being told that they are not behaving in ways that conform to the classroom. But perhaps their brain is not built for the standardized classroom. What if school looked like this instead?
Is Rushing Academics Detrimental To The Developing Brain?

Mindful Moments Blog

Is Rushing Academics Detrimental To The Developing Brain?

How do children best learn, and what happens when academics are the focus of pre-school and kindergarten? This study gives us some pretty telling answers. 
Quit Pathologizing Children’s Stress

Mindful Moments Blog

Quit Pathologizing Children’s Stress

Research has shown that children who feel unsafe and disconnected cannot learn. Why is this and what can we do as parents and educators? 
Nurturing A Natural Love For Learning

Mindful Moments Blog

Nurturing A Natural Love For Learning

How do you nurture curious risk-takers who love to learn? It starts here.
School Culture Affects Black Student Achievement

Mindful Moments Blog

School Culture Affects Black Student Achievement

As students prepare to return to school this fall, there are many things for parents and educators to consider. We are still in the midst of a pandemic and living in an environment where racial disparities are being brought to the forefront where they can no longer be swept under the rug to be ignored, tolerated, or forgotten.  
Post-Pandemic Schools Need More Than Academics

Mindful Moments Blog

Post-Pandemic Schools Need More Than Academics

Post-pandemic children have a lot to adjust to. And there is no cookie-cutter response because the mental health of our children is not one-dimensional. There is a spectrum of feelings and emotional stress taking a seat in the classroom this year. Here are some tools for nurturing social-emotional learning (SEL). 
The Stories Kids Want To Tell About COVID

Mindful Moments Blog

The Stories Kids Want To Tell About COVID

Our children grew up in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their brains developed in quarantine. Their bodies changed in lockdown. They are emerging from this as different people, and the impact it had on them is yet to be told. Here are 4 things we can do to support our children’s social-emotional health this school year ...
Play-based tool to reduce stress in the classroom

Mindful Moments Blog

A Play-Based Solution To Reducing Stress In The Classroom

How can educators bring mindfulness practices into their classrooms? This educator shares tips and ideas for playful mindful minutes that can be added into the school day.
Preschooler Teaches Her Younger Sister About Emotions While Learning To Manage Her Own

Mindful Moments Blog

Preschooler Teaches Her Younger Sister About Emotions While Learning To Manage Her Own

The last thing Kelly wanted was another gimmick for a tired, worn-out parent. She was overwhelmed and out of ideas on how to manage her daughters' meltdowns. But then something amazing happened ... her oldest daughter taught her youngest daughter how to use a feelings chart. 
Feeding The Senses Helps Regulate Emotions: Part 2

Mindful Moments Blog

Feeding The Senses Helps Regulate Emotions: Part 2

Sensory diets are one way to incorporate alerting or calming sensory activities to regulate the nervous system, and because every child is unique, so too is every sensory diet. Here are 9 things to consider when designing a sensory diet: 
What Teachers Are Thinking and Feeling About Returning To School This Year

Mindful Moments Blog

What Teachers Are Thinking and Feeling About Returning To School This Year

With fall approaching, parents and educators are looking to the next school year and wondering what’s best for everyone involved.
Girl reading a school book

Mindful Moments Blog

School After COVID: What Parents Are Saying

Last March, school districts across the country closed due to COVID, and more than 55 million children were sent home to finish their school year.
Raising Mindful Children During The Age Of Black Lives Matter

Mindful Moments Blog

Raising Awake Children in the Age of Black Lives Matter

Our country is standing at a pivoting point. #BlackLivesMatter is the anthem and our nation is singing in the face of injustice. For all lives to matter, black lives must matter. 
Woman writing a letter

Mindful Moments Blog

An Open Letter To My Child's Teacher

For months, every morning, I sent my child off to school to be in your care. I entrusted you with my heart as he walked into your classroom. I handed him off to you, woman to woman, knowing that for the next several hours, it would be you that he looked up to, watched, and absorbed. Now, here we are, in this unusual time of staying home. He no longer takes a seat in your classroom, yet he is still in your class. 
Forced homeschooling due to COVID-19

Mindful Moments Blog

4 Guiding Principles for Parents Teaching From Home

Four tips to help parents create meaningful and effective in-home learning opportunities during the pandemic.
Little girl in her Calming Corner

Mindful Moments Blog

Positive Affirmations are Helping Kids

These printable mantra bracelets are a great way for parents to share comforting and empowering mantras with children as young as age two on up. Because when we feel worthy and loved, we respond as if we are worthy and loved. And when we feel powerless and not enough, we respond as if we are powerless and not enough.
6 Tips for Using Yoga to Support Social-Emotional Inclusion

Mindful Moments Blog

6 Tips for Using Yoga to Support Social-Emotional Inclusion

Sierra has struggled to cultivate language for how her disability impacts her own social-emotional development and how it impacts her experiences at school. This struggle has been a barrier to Sierra’s ability to create positive relationships with her classmates.