Mindfulness

Welcome to Mindfulness

In Mindfulness lessons, we learn life-long social-emotional skills by asking and answering the essential questions:  What is it like to be me?  What is it like to be you?

Mindful approach and Mindfulness practices are our tools to develop understanding as well as compassion for ourselves and others. Mindfulness also is used to manage our emotions and our stress.

Our yearlong focus is learning and practicing mindful self awareness, self management, social awareness, and relationship skills plus responsible decision-making within each of these skill categories. This includes awareness and management of our bodies, actions, emotions, thoughts, and values. 1st grade students are applying their mindfulness understandings and skills as they dive deep into mindful eating with bi-monthly weekly lessons based on the FIE curriculum. All K-5 students are applying their mindfulness understandings and skills within a collaborative Mindful Music PBL project based learning project co-taught by our Music teacher, Roslyn Mattingly, and me.

• Self awareness is the ability to understand one's own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts. (CASEL)

• Self management is the ability to manage one's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations and to achieve goals and aspirations. (CASEL)

• Responsible decision-making is the ability to make caring and constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions across diverse situations.  (CASEL)

• Social awareness is the ability to understand the perspectives of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts. (CASEL)

• Relationship skills are the abilities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups. (CASEL)

Our specific focus for the the first nine weeks is self awareness and social awareness: recognizing and identifying feelings (e.g., hunger, thirst, joy, sadness, anger, and fear) and showing ourselves and others care when we need it. As much as possible, the school garden will be our Mindfulness classroom which looks different this year thanks to a grant from Idlewild Butterfly Farm and support from the Louisville Chapter - Wild Ones.

Check out action snapshots from our daily lessons on X (formerly Twitter) at @BloomCompassion .

If you are looking for a mindfulness lesson for your student, please click on the Mindful PE Choice Board linked below and also linked HERE.

Contact me, please, with any questions or if you would like ideas for bringing more mindfulness into your life. CNXT, email catherine.graber@jefferson.kyschools.us or call 502-485-8211. I'm here to help!

Mindfully Yours,
Catherine

Catherine Graber
pronouns: she, her
Mindfulness Coach | Bloom Elementary
Bloom Compassion: @BloomCompassion
Compassionate Schools Project: compassionschools.org