Activities and Teaching Resources

Activities for teaching mindfulness and meditation, kindness and compassion, generosity and gratitude, social responsibility and social-emotional skills.

Photo by Nine Köpfer on Unsplash

NEW POSTS... just in time for Earth Day...

Mindful Moments in Nature (Appreciating nature through tactile awareness, mindful listening, and a mindful art activity.)

Songs About Nature and the Environment (A song playlist for teachers, about protecting the environment, appreciating nature, and treating all creatures with respect and compassion.)

Are You New to Teaching Mindfulness?

Many teachers find this site because they've heard about the benefits of mindfulness and are looking for 'mindfulness scripts' or activities. 

Please don't teach your students meditation or formal mindfulness practices unless you have experience doing these practices yourself and have some training in working with the student population you plan to teach.

You may actually want to leave this page for now and go to the Start Here page, which has advice on teaching different ages of students in different contexts. 




Activities for Practicing and Teaching Mindfulness, Compassion, Gratitude, and Social-Emotional Skills

I've gotten a lot of requests to use these activities in various contexts, and I've found some of this content illegally copied onto other sites.  Please link to these activities; do not copy them to your own site.  (If you'd like to use them for anything other than your own personal practice or teaching your current students, please see the Frequently-Asked Questions for information on permissions and copyright issues.) 

Noncompetitive Games and Group Activities  
This might be a good place to start if you teach kids and don't have training in teaching mindfulness.  (You might also be interested in the gratitude and five senses activities for individuals or groups, in the section below.)

• Human Camera: a mindfulness activity to engage the senses    
• Marble Roll: a noncompetitive game for teaching mindfulness     
• No Winners or Losers: noncompetitive games for kids 

Activities for Individuals or Groups 
The following practices and activities should be appropriate or adaptable for most contexts: adults or kids, individually or in a class.  (Within reason: I'm obviously not advocating that groups of children start driving, but the 'Red, Orange, Yellow' practice best fits in the five senses category.) 

Five Senses 

• Counting Sounds: a mindful walking practice 
• A Dozen Ways to Explore the Five Senses
• Five Contemplative Art Practices
• Mindful Moments in Nature
• Noticing the Five Senses: a daily mindfulness log
• Five Senses Snack: a mindful eating chart
• Rainbow Walk: a mindfulness activity to move the body and rest the mind
• Red, Orange, Yellow: a mindful driving practice

Gratitude

• 9 Simple but Powerful Gratitude Practices to Share with Your Students
• Secular and Spiritual Perspectives on Gratitude: quotations from Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Humanist, Jewish, Muslim, and Secular Mindfulness sources, along with questions for discussion or writing

Effective Communication/Mindful Speech/Relational Mindfulness 
These are particularly appropriate for teens. (The 'case studies' are short examples of skillful and unskillful speech.)

• Changing the Script : a mindful way to handle annoyance  
• Power Struggles: case studies in mindful communication  
• T.H.I.N.K. Before You Speak: case studies in mindful speech  
• T.H.I.N.K. Before You Speak 2: case studies in mindful speech      

Class Discussion Topics 
Many of these would also be appropriate for journaling or as reflective writing assignments.

• Mindful Listening: Only If You Listen Can You Hear: teaching students how to participate respectfully in a discussion or a debate

• Mindful or Mindless? analyzing characters in books and movies 

• Mindfulness and Happiness: quotations about appreciating the present moment, letting go of attachments, embracing moderation, and finding meaning.
• Using Mindful Questioning to Enhance Academic Learning: suggestions for integrating mindfulness instruction with academic content in English, Philosophy, Drama, History, and Psychology.

• What is Mindfulness? quotations about mindfulness meditation, informal mindfulness practice, and nonjudgmental awareness.

• Song Playlists with Discussion Questions

(I've recently found more interpretations in ASL, BSL, and Auslan: I'll add them to as many of the songs as I can.)

Great Children's Songs about Mindfulness, Self-Acceptance, and Gratitude  

All About the Breath: songs about breath-based meditation, breathing through strong emotions, and 'the moments that take your breath away'

Are You Happy?: songs about feeling happy, looking on the bright side, and pretending to be happy while hiding our true feelings

Be Here Now: songs about growing up, seasons changing, remembering the past, and appreciating the present moment

Change the World: songs about diversity, unity, love for humanity, and making a difference

Songs about Kindness and Compassion (part 1 of 2): songs about treating each other with compassion, empathy, and kindness

Songs about Kindness and Compassion (part 2 of 2): songs about discrimination, understanding people from different backgrounds, and taking action to help others 

Songs about Gratitude (part 1 of 2): songs offering thanks to specific people; songs expressing appreciation for life itself

Songs about Gratitude (part 2 of 2): more songs about appreciating our circumstances and our loved ones 

Songs about Nature and the Environment: songs about protecting the environment, appreciating nature, and treating all creatures with respect and compassion

Songs about Self-Acceptance: songs about being true to ourselves and recognizing our own strength and vulnerability

What is Love? (part 1 of 2): songs about friends, parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren

What is Love? (part 2 of 2): songs about healthy and unhealthy romantic relationships

• Video Playlists with Discussion Questions

Any of these videos would be appropriate for adults or teens. Most of them are also appropriate for younger kids, but please watch the full video before deciding what to share with your class.

Creative Ways to Make a Difference: short videos about people with unique abilities and inclinations supporting the community in creative and unusual ways.

Videos about Kindness, Compassion, and Service (part 1):  short videos about small acts of kindness and large acts of philanthropy. 

Videos about Kindness, Compassion, and Service (part 2): short videos about empathy and aid for people from different backgrounds.

Mindful Movement
Especially if you don't have training or experience teaching yoga or other forms of mindful movement, please try these movements yourself a few times before teaching them to others. 

• Giant Strides: a seated walking practice   

• Jungle Yoga Adventure for Kids

• Trying on Different Shapes: mindfulness of mood and posture  

Meditation and Formal Mindfulness Practice
These are appropriate for personal practice or for use by teachers with an established personal practice and preferably some training in teaching mindfulness.

• Body Scan: awareness of the body
• DIY Mini-Retreat for Counselors and Teachers

• One-Word Labeling : thoughts, emotions, sensations, and urges  
• Relaxed Abdominal Breath: stress reduction through mindful breathing  
• Tense and Let Go: yoga nidra relaxation practice
• Time to Breathe: awareness of the present moment   

Emotions and Thoughts    
These are appropriate for teaching kids if you have an established personal mindfulness practice.

• Emotion Improv: an exercise for developing mindfulness of feelings  
• Harnessing the Four Elements: a mindfulness activity for facing challenges  
• Pebble Meditation: a mindfulness activity to cultivate peace
• The Top Three Breathing Exercises for Anxious Kids 

Compassion, Self-Compassion, and Self-Awareness
These are appropriate for adults or mature teens. If you plan to use them in teaching others, please respect participants' decisions about how much they choose to share with the group.

• Building Narratives of Inclusion: Mitigating Implicit and Explicit Bias

• Compassionate Image: a guided visualization practice  

• I Wish You Peace: a simple lovingkindness meditation 

• Increasing Your Ability to be Present 

• Next Time I'll Do Better: recognizing and learning from mistakes  

• Personal Triggers: recognizing the causes of problematic behavior
• Restless Mind: typical strategies for denying stress
• Wise Elder Visualization: a practice for parents and teachers      

Links to Resources on Mindfulness

1,500 Free Mindfulness Exercises from MindfulnessExercises.com

Sign Language Resources on Mindfulness, Meditation, and Yoga 

Mindfulness for Our Children from mindfulness4u.org

Guided Meditations for Young Adults  from the online MSW program at USC

Mindfulness for Children app

Mindfulness for Teenagers from mindfulness4u.org

Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure, developed by Dr. Ruth Baer   

  

Do’s and don’ts when teaching mindfulness, by Deborah Schoeberlein at Huffington Post      

  

Eight Tips for Teaching Mindfulness in High School by Patrick Cook-Deegan at  Greater Good     

Five Tips for Teaching Mindfulness to At-Risk Teens, by Karen Bluth at Greater Good

  

Guided Meditations for Teens from MindfulnessforTeens.com    

Guided Meditations in English and Spanish from the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center

  

How to teach mindfulness, by Emily Drabble at The Guardian     

Mindfulness and children: 6 lessons for teaching the joy of the moment, by Bill Gerlach at The New Pursuit           

Mindfulness can make you popular: How to get your teen to meditate, at Mindful Hub 

  

Mindfulness Activities for Children from JoyfulMind.net    

  

Nine Awesome Mindfulness Videos on YouTube, from Mrs. Mindfulness   

  

Self-Guided MBSR Course: Free 8-week online course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction   

  

Teaching Mindfulness to Teens: 5 Ways to Get "Buy-In"  from Left Brain Buddha

  

Tips for teaching mindfulness to kids  by Meghan Cowan at The Greater Good     

  

Links to Resources on Compassion, Meditation, Social-Emotional Learning, and related topics    

Sesame Street in Communities has resources for helping young children cope with grief and trauma.

Benefits of Meditation from learnrelaxationtechniques.com

Bullybust.org has film clips about different types of bullying, with discussion questions and teaching guides.   Plus videos of ‘Upstanders’—bystanders who stand up for those who are bullied.

The Center for Adolescent Studies blog:  tips for working with resistant teens, setting appropriate boundaries, deciding when to disclose personal information, etc.     

Classroom Lessons on Social-Emotional Learning and sensitively teaching current and controversial issues, from the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility.

  
The Coalition to Support Grieving Students: "The site covers a range of grief-related topics to provide training resources specially designed for school professionals."                     

Fables to Grow On, to promote social and emotional learning, as well as literacy skills    

Five Reasons We Can't Ignore Social-Emotional Learning by Sasha Briggs at InformED

FindaSit.com is a new site where you can search for a meditation group near you

Guided Meditations from Against the Stream: Buddhist Meditation Society

Guided Meditations from Mindfulness and Psychotherapy

Here's What Will Happen to You When Your Body, Mind, and Soul When You Meditate, from BookMeditationRetreats.com

  

Lesson Plans on civil rights, immigration, and discrimination from Teaching Tolerance    

Love Is Respect has resources on healthy relationships vs. dating abuse.

No Stigmas has a directory of mental health resources  and a peer support group.    

  

Online Yoga Resources for Every Body: This is a list I put together of the best advice on teaching yoga to those of us who don't fit the profile of a "typical" yoga student.  (For example, because of a larger body or a disability.)       

  

7 Tips for Positively Managing Student Behavior from Quill.com