Breathe Like a Bear and Integrating Breathing Breaks For Kids

Breathing and meditation practices are wonderful for parents and educators to have in their toolbelt of resources

Benefits of Breathing Breaks and Practice Ideas

Breathe Like Bear!

This is a great little practice guide for parents and educators:

The book is available on Amazon here.

Support for Parents and Educators

Tips (Breathe Like Bear)

  1. Skim through the pages and find the ones that stand out to you
  2. Be ready to teach on the fly! Have an upset little one? Offer “Hot Chocolate Breath” or “Pizza Breath” – Pay attention to their reaction. If they seem interested, you could try it with them.
  3. Be willing to adapt practices based on kids’ requests and needs. It’s okay to go outside the book and make up or modify into your own versions of things!

Other suggestions for the classroom:

-Where do you even get started? Learn a few practices at time. Know that it’s okay to know very little! Start small!

-Try it out and see what works – listen to the kids’ feedback. Does this one work for them? Would they like another one instead? Which one is their favourite?

-As you learn more practice ideas, it gets easier to offer breathing exercises in the moment –to help support them with calming, grounding and centering, whenever they need it.

Remember: Check your own breathing! These practices can help you, as a parent and/or educator to stay calm, centred and grounded yourself. You can role-model self-regulation to kids by becoming more aware and in-control of your own breathing. When you are ready, if you like, you might take the time to slow down for a while and practice your own breathing exercises and or meditations. There will be benefits for you and your kids/classroom!

3 thoughts on “Breathe Like a Bear and Integrating Breathing Breaks For Kids”

  1. Hello Dani, reading your post was amazing and very interesting. Having breathing breaks within the classroom and with the students, I find really helps them mentally, emotionally, and physically. In the past when working as a substitute and EA, I seen something similar like this used in a class and watching how the students reacted was unbelievable as the breathing technique helped students find their center (balance) and was able to transition to the next subject. I loved how your post connected to ways to support families, teachers, and the classroom as to other suggestions. Your resources and the video was amazing. Supporting our future students is very important and this can help build that connection which can help them throughout their education. Thank you for sharing your amazing post!

  2. I want to say first off that I really love the look of your blog page!
    This post really excited me, as I plan to use mindfulness in my future classrooms. After reading this blog post I will be searching our the rest that you have done this semester to save the resources that you have offered!
    Thank you for providing wonderful resources on a topic that I think is important for kids and adults alike!

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