Have you ever felt anxious and frozen to the spot? Has your brain gone completely blank and you can’t speak!? I know I have and it doesn’t leave you feeling confident and brave.
It was such a relief when I learnt that I can be the boss of my own brain! In Mindful Kids we learn lots of ways to be the boss of our own brain. It helps if we know how our brain works.
One of my favourite activities in Mindful Kids is making a mindful globe. It’s such a simple way for kids to learn about our brain and its heaps of fun. Mindful Kids is all about learning and having fun at the same time, how cool is that!
When kids become emotionally deregulated such as when they feel anxious the amygdala (the body’s natural fight or flight response kicks in). Our prefrontal cortex (that part that helps us to problem solve and think) switches off and this makes it almost impossible to make rational decisions and can often lead to unwanted behaviours.
What is a Mindful Globe used for?
The Mindful Globe is like our brain. It gets all mixed up when we’re anxious but when we slow down like the sparkles we feel calmer and as they settle to the bottom the water clears and that’s when we can see clearly and make good choices.
When you have a strong feeling like anxiety, shake up your mindful globe and take slow deep breaths while you watch the sparkles spin around inside and keep watching the sparkles until they start to slow down and settle to the bottom of the jar. If we focus our attention on the glitter and watch it slowly settle to the bottom of the jar we start to feel calmer. This is Mindfulness.
How to make a Mindful Globe
Materials
A glass jar such an old jam jar or mayo (you can use plastic as well)
Clear PVA Glue
Sparkles
Food colouring
Water (warm or cold)
Method
Scrub the label off your glass jar and dry it
Add 1/3 of hot water into a glass jar
Add 2 heaped tbl spoon clear PVA glue
Add 3-4 drops of food colouring (watch the cool change that happens)
Put the lid on and shake up the jar really well
Fill the rest of your jar up with cool water
Add 1 tbl spoon of sparkles, tighten the lid and shake it again.
Decorate your jar with ribbon, stickers or anything that makes it special to you.
Keep your mindful globe in a sunny spot and watch the colour and sparkles light up, just like you!!!
Enjoy 😃
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