Mindful Listening: outside noises (K-2nd Grades)

During the first part of this class we focused on mindfully listening to the sounds around us.  A kindergarten boy in the class requested that we us the rocks again, so I placed a rock in each child's hand when I saw that he or she found a calm body.  Rock in hand, the students began focusing on the sounds happening around the art room.  Afterwards I asked them to share some of the things that they heard, and everyone was enthusiastic about sharing one or two sounds.

After that, we went on another Sahara Desert movement adventure!  We met some of the same animals that we encountered during our last class, and found some new ones too.  The camel, scarab beetle, sidewinder snake, ostrich, and dorcas gazelle all made an appearance.  We also came across a scorpion, monitor lizard, and the fennec fox!  For the monitor lizard we practiced lizard pose, which was challenging to a few students.  At the end of our adventure we used bee breath, or brahmari, to calm down.  Basically, bee breath is created by taking a deep inhale and humming during the exhales.  For the first few rounds of bee breath we kept our ears open, then we used our fingers to plug our ears so that our own "bee" sound was most prominent.  This breathing exercise is fantastic for calming the nervous system!

When the sounds of the bees in the room dissipated, we were ready to jump into creating artwork!  During our last class, the student used black paint to create an outline of one of the desert animals we looked at.  Today they used watercolor paint to add color to the animal and the background.  Here are some photos of the beautiful artworks so far!