Activities and Teaching Resources

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

Photo by Nine Köpfer on Unsplash

NEW Posts

7 Ways Our Thoughts Deceive Us

Metaphors for Mindfulness and Meditation

Mindful Cell Phone Use, for Students and Teachers

Inspiring Videos of Young People Serving the World

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.) 

Several of the following are sample/promotional activities from books on teaching mindfulness. If you really like an activity from a particular book, I encourage you to buy the book in order to see the activity in context and find more lessons that will work well with your students. (Purchasing a book also helps to support the author. I don’t have an Amazon affiliate account and don’t track or benefit from purchases made through links from this site.)

Song Playlists for Teachers

Songs for teaching mindfulness, compassion, gratitude, social-emotional skills and social responsibility.

Video Playlists for Teachers

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

Inspiring Videos of Young People Serving the World: children, teens, and young adults who've made a difference in their own communities or communities in other parts of the world.  

Inspiring Videos of Service to Humanity: helping child soldiers, victims of human trafficking, and former gang members, and providing 'spiritual and mental nutrition' to the starving.

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.

Self-Care Videos: Gentle Yoga, Mindful Movement, and Indoor Walking

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 (includes mindful listening, tactile awareness, and a mindful art project)
• 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

• More Than Saying Thank You: Activities That Encourage Awe for the Ordinary  
• 9 Simple but Powerful Gratitude Practices to Share with Your Students
• Songs About Gratitude, part 1
• Songs About Gratitude, part 2
• Tales of Generosity: Lessons on Gratitude and Compassion

Mindful Communication

• Changing the Script : a mindful way to handle annoyance  
• Mindful Cell Phone Use, for Students and Teachers
• 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      

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

• Metaphors for Mindfulness and Meditation
• 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.
• The Power of Forgiveness: Quotations for Reflection and Discussion
• Tales of Generosity: Lessons on Gratitude and Compassion
• 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.

Yoga and 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  

• My Goal in Heart, Mind, and Body: How Yoga and Mindfulness Can Support Life Goals

• 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 and meditation.

• Body Scan: awareness of the body
• 'Check Up From the Neck Up' Relaxation Practice

• DIY Mini-Retreat for Counselors and Teachers
• Mindful Listening in a Noisy World

• 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 

• The Power of Intention Setting for a Mindful School Year

• 7 Ways Our Thoughts Deceive Us

• Wise Elder Visualization: a practice for parents and teachers      

Links to Resources on Mindfulness


First, do no harm. Seven Ethical Guidelines for Teaching Mindfulness from Dr. Christopher Willard

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

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

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 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   

  

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    

resources for Elementary School Counselors, including mindfulness and social-emotional learning

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.

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