Visual Art

Breathing Bubbles - An Exploration in Mindfulness

June 9, 2024

Two years ago, I attended an online STEAM conference that blew my mind. The conference was organized by two stunningly talented and creative teachers, Tricia Clifford Fuglestad, who teaches elementary art in Chicago, Illinois, and Erika Sandstrom, a middle school digital media teacher based in Boston, Massachusetts. That conference changed my teaching forever, especially in the way it introduced green screen technology to me with all its potential to integrate with the arts and enrich the literacy instruction I already do.

One of the other gems happened to be Ms. Sandstrom's breathing bubble, which she featured in the conference as a little nugget in between conference sessions. There was no specific workshop on it, but she shared it as a brief, one-minute break that the conference participants could all try as a mindfulness exercise. Even though it was only one minute, the breathing bubble left a lasting, breathtaking impression on me with its beautiful, calming effect on the body, mind, and spirit.

Watching a breathing bubble helps you keep rhythm and pace during a deep breathing session. When the bubble expands, you inhale, and when it contracts, you exhale. At the high and low points of the bubble, you hold your breath for three seconds, a key part of the breathing technique that helps slow down your heart rate. Within a minute of watching the breathing bubble, I felt calmer, more at peace, and more centered.

In a separate, free webinar shared by Erika, I learned how she would use the Calm app's breathing bubble to help her students during the pandemic, and then developed the idea of making her own breathing bubbles with images that personally sparked joy and peace for herself. This became a passion project for her, and she began teaching her students how to make their own personalized breathing bubbles.

I was fascinated by this idea, and thought it would be a wonderful activity to incorporate into Fairburn's Wellness Wednesdays in my classroom, so a few weeks ago, I finally made the time to watch Erika's tutorial and try making my own breathing bubbles using Canva. The first one I made is featured here.

The process of making my own breathing bubble is actually very calming in itself. And of course, finally seeing the finished product is amazing - you get to not only watch it and apply it, but also share it with others. The breathing bubble is a powerful tool for calming down my class, keeping them quiet and still, even if for only a minute. More importantly, it's a good reminder that deep, conscious breathing is essential to our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being, and can reduce stress. It's backed by current scientific research, which says that "When we pay attention to our breath, when we take a deeper inhale and extended exhale, this rest-and-digest system can override our fight-or-flight system, sending the message to parts of the body readying stress defenses that all is, in fact, fine." (Mindful Magazine)

So I began to think bigger. What if I could teach my second graders to make their own breathing bubbles? We had already dabbled in Canva in the computer lab thanks to Planet Bravo, so I was hopeful we would be up to the challenge.

Remarkably, after a week of fiddling on Canva, making lots of mistakes, problem solving, and finding successes, nearly all my students were able to create their own breathing bubbles. It was encouraging for me to see some students who had mastered the art of creating breathing bubbles become tutors to their peers, and see students engaged in making something that was not only beautiful, creative, and joyful, but which also could be helpful to their friends and family. And it was another way of giving children a voice.

To experience the calming, soothing effect of breathing bubbles, try any of these and feel the calm wash over you.