Mindfulness of Sound

Artwork from a Kindergarten artist

Have you ever been curious which animals on our planet have the best hearing?  During our last Mind Move Make class, this is one of the things we talked about!  I was incredibly shocked to learn that the animal with the best hearing in the entire world is (drum roll please) The Greater Wax Moth (there is a picture of the moth at the very end of this post)!  The Greater Wax Moth can hear 150 times more than humans can.  If you want to know the other 9 animals with the best hearing, check this out!

We've been imagining what it would be like to become an animal, and learning about compassion for other creatures along the way.  Over the next few classes we will explore our five senses and contemplate how other animals in our world experience their surroundings.  Today we practiced minfulness of sound.  I asked the students to pretend their hearing was ultra sensitive, like one of the animals we learned about with incredible hearing.  Then we focused on the sounds that existed around us.  Afterwards, we discussed all the different things we heard and the students shared which animal they were pretending to be during our mindfulness practice.

Then, during the first part of our movement work the students became the animal they've been working with over the past few weeks.  They could move around the room in a way they thought the animal might move.  It was fun watching them get into character, and interesting seeing them move their bodies in such different ways depending on the animal they chose!  After that we focused on a more traditional yoga practice, working with poses that the students are already familiar with.

After that it was time to continue our animal paintings during the art portion of the class!  I passed back the picture of the animal each child chose for a visual reference, and the students added color to their drawings and backgrounds.  Here are some of the colorful pieces of art the children created:

The Greater Wax Moth

Learning About Compassion

During our last class, each student chose an animal to focus on for the course of our nine weeks together.  Last week I briefly introduced them to the idea of Native American Spirit Animals.  Some Native Americans believe that animals can help us through difficult times in our lives, and act as teachers in many ways.  Each student chose an animal he or she really likes to learn more about for this session.

Before the students entered the classroom I had a picture of the animal he or she chose with his or her name on the picture.  Each animal picture was placed on a yoga mat.  I asked the students to sit on the mat with the picture of the animal he or she chose.  Then they spent time with the picture looking at every detail using the powers of observation.  During this session it is each child's responsibility to take good care of the animal picture that is theirs, as if it were a pet.

During our mindfulness activity, the children imagined what it would feel like to become the animal they chose.  I asked many questions as they were following their breath:

Do you have fur, feathers, or scales?        

How do you get from one place to another? 

Do you fly, run, walk, swim, crawl?

What do your feet feel like?  Do you have flippers, hooves, claws, paws?

It was wonderful hearing the students share their thoughts and feelings about using their imaginations to become their chosen animal!

After that we had a conversation about compassion.  When I asked, no one was able to tell me what the word compassion meant, but they were all very curious.  I explained compassion by having each child imagine that their best friend fell off the monkey bars on the playground and got hurt.  The friend was crying and had scraped both knees badly.  "How would you feel toward that friend?" I asked.  Everyone agreed they would feel sad and want to help their friend.  "That is the feeling of compassion," I said.  Compassion combines caring for another living thing and not wanting harm to come to that thing.  

Then the students got to move all around the room pretending to be the animal they had chosen!  That is how we began our movement practice.  We also found many other yoga poses.  At the end of our movement work I let the students self-practice their favorite poses!  

During the art part of our class, the students painted a drawing!  They used a thin paintbrush and black paint to draw the image of the animal they will be working with.  Many of the students were very proud of their animal drawing when they were finished.  

Animals and the Imagination

When I was brainstorming ideas for this session I was dreaming of Spring's arrival.  Visions of our dreary grey skies changing into bright sun-infused blue and dormant trees suddenly bursting with delicate light-green buds filled my head.  The idea of transformations returned to my mind again and again.  Then I thought of my 3-year-old and how he is constantly using his imagination to "become" other things: animals, pilots, astronauts, monsters, The Rat King from The Nutcracker.  

My mind centered on developing a Mind Move Make session devoted to children's imaginary transformations.  If you have a child of your own, how many times has he or she decided to become a cat for the afternoon, or perhaps a horse?  During this Mind Move Make session we will focus on pretending we are different types of animals.  What it would be like to have hooves instead of feet or fur instead of skin?  What would it feel like to flutter above a flower like a butterfly?  Or to be able to see at night like an owl?  Each child will choose one animal to focus on during this session, but through our group interactions we will look at many different kinds of animals.

I believe that through these imaginings, children can develop a sense of empathy for other creatures, with the right guidance from a teacher or an adult.  Our Central Idea for this session is:

Our imaginations can help us connect to other living things.   

During our first class I posed the question,  "If you could become any animal, what would it be?".  Then I had the students choose one partner with whom to share his or her ideas about this.  By the end of the conversation, each child had chosen the animal on which he or she wanted to focus.

For our mindfulness practice we worked on connecting to the breath, as we do during every class.  I also asked the children to picture the animal he or she had chosen.  I asked them to think about the habitat the animal would live in also.  Then we returned again to purely concentrating on our breathing.  After our mindfulness activity was finished, I asked the children to share what they imagined.

Then we transitioned to our movement practice.  I talked about how animals are very aware of how their bodies are moving at all times.  As humans, we sometimes forget we even have bodies when we are deep in thought.  We stood in a circle and I asked the students to follow my movements.  At first I moved in a slow, graceful way.  Then I changed my movements to very fast.  All the while I reminded them to continuously notice their bodies and how they felt during the slow and fast movements.  Then I let each student lead us, moving alternatively fast and slow.  There were lots of giggles, and we had fun with the movements!  Afterward, I asked how their bodies felt different moving slowly or fast.  Several students said their limbs and bodies felt heavy during the slow movements, and lighter during the fast movements.  They did a wonderful job truly noticing their bodies!

During the art part of our class, each student received a sketchbook.  On the front cover of the sketchbook the students drew the animal they will focus on for this session.  Here are a few of the students' drawings!