Prep - Year 12
Incursion
1.5 - 2 hours
Big Idea
Students learn about and try mindfulness strategies within, and connecting with the natural world. This can help them become calm in times of stress, focus on learning and can lead to feeling happier. The attentiveness of mindfulness is also a key skill needed in inquiry processes.
Curriculum Links
Wellbeing, General Capabilities (Personal & Social Capabilities) , Cross-curriculum Priorities (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures).
Program overview
Your students will gain a deeper connection with the environment and themselves by undertaking different nature connected mindfulness activities. Mindfulness strategies focus full attention on something real in the present – an object or an action such as breathing. You may have been mindful without even knowing it. For example, when you go to shoot a goal in netball or basketball you focus on the hoop, the feel of the ball and the position of your arms and hands. You shut out all other thoughts and noises then take the shot. Mindfulness is useful in practically any part of life - not just as it is commonly thought of as a means of calming down or destressing. The deep attentiveness of mindfulness improves observation skills which are crucial to inquiry, creativity, literacy and numeracy. There are many different ways of practising mindfulness to suit different individuals or an individual at different times.
You can negotiate with the Bunyaville EEC teachers which of the following mindfulness activities will best suit your students.
- Rainbow chips (focus on a colour)
- 1, 2, tree (focus senses of touch, smell, hearing and body position)
- Bush / neighbourhood choir (focus on sounds)
- Smell catchers (focus on scent)
- Special leaf and it’s story (focus on observing detail and creative imagination)
- Wind dancers (focus on observing and describing movement)
- Hold it in your hands (focus on observing detail and sense of touch)
- Ochre Art (focus on touch and fine motor movement)
- Mindful walking (focus on body position or feel of the ground underfoot N
- Nature journaling or sketching
- String weaving (focus on touch and fine motor movement)
- If this tree could speak (focus on observations and creative imagination)
- Ripples through Time (through story, reflect on past, present and future significance of a place)
- Dadirri (connecting to Country through silent sitting from Aunty Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann)
Curriculum Activity Risk Assessments
For this program you will need to refer to the relevant Curriculum Activity Risk Assessment.