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This year, Mrs. Marea Kessler, is bringing the practice of mindfulness to our lower school students. Sharing mindfulness with students helps to encourage healthy interactions and a positive classroom climate and supports students’ learning readiness. This research-based approach supports students in building skills for attention regulation (focus and concentration) and emotional regulation. For the sake of simplicity, it can be defined as noticing what's happening right now. It also includes the intentional nurturing of positive state of mind, such as empathy and kindness. 

Trained to teach mindfulness by Mindful Schools, Mrs. Kessler will be in the classroom for about 15 minutes every three to four weeks to practice mindfulness with all of our 1st through 5th grade students. 

Studies find that learning mindfulness benefits students in terms of improved attention, emotion regulation, behavior in school, empathy and understanding of others, social skills, test anxiety, and stress. Mindfulness helps students learn to take a pause when they feel upset or overwhelmed, during which thoughtful responses can replace impulsive reactions.

Some examples of how our students will be using mindfulness in class are noticing and naming our emotions, using mindfulness of breathing before test-taking to calm anxiety and improve focus, or pausing when feeling frustrated or impatient.