Muriel's Kitchen FoundationSensory Activity for kids
Although mindfulness can be a bit of an abstract concept for kids, it is a powerful mental skill that can assist any of us get through stressful situations and manage with big emotions. It’s about being aware of our thoughts, our surroundings, our emotions and how we feel physically.
Sensory activities are a great way to teach mindfulness with children. It can be anything that involves a sense of sight, smell, sound, taste, touch and even internal emotions and physical movement.
This exercise can be helpful in identifying the triggers, emotions and the reactions to regulate the emotion, for both the caretakers and the individual.
The ‘ Let’s Play ‘ exercise in Dream Catcher – Growth Mindset Training for Kids is one of those activities. It combines sensory play with visual and tactile activities:
– How does it feel to you when you touch a lemon? – Can you smell the lemon? – How does that make you feel?
– Do you enjoy it?
Try to use as many descriptive words as you can like sweet, sour, bitter, salty, hard, soft.
Creating awareness of which situation triggers which emotion and how to identify and act accordingly, can be a helpful tool when dealing with troubled behaviour, like a tantrum (at school or at home).
This exercise can be helpful in identifying the triggers, emotions and the reactions to regulate the emotion, for both the caretakers and the individual.
Although these exercises are self-explanatory, assisted guidance is always available through coaching sessions or join the closed Facebook group for advise on lifting, growing and generating a growth mindset with kids.
Dream Catcher – Growth Mindset training for kids, is a customised workbook designed to understand, recognise and assist oneself in developing resilience, helping to regulate emotions in difficult situations and to strengthen the ‘growth mindset’.