My students need a library of resources, including books, magazines, fidget balls and cushions, that support mindfulness, calm, and relaxation.
$2,314 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
“Before we can teach a kid how to academically excel in school, we need to teach him how to have stillness, pay attention, stay on task, regulate, make good choices. We tell kids to be quiet, calm down, be still--all these things they need in the classroom, but we’re not teaching them how to do it."
I teach in a behavior unit for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders at a Title 1 school in an urban Utah area.
My students have faced enormous challenges in their lives and they have risen above them. They have transitioned from "troubled" kids to some of the most remarkable students in our school. They work hard and they are kind. They offer compassion to those they see struggling and they offer themselves to others as a resource by sharing their experience and that which has helped them along their journeys. They enjoy learning and have made significant gains academically as they have moved from that place in them from surviving school to thriving in school. My students are learning to listen to their bodies and use the information their bodies provide them. They learn this through stillness, presence, and awareness. My students benefit from mindfulness practices that support them in recognizing their feelings as they are experiencing them. This helps them to make good choices that serve them.
My Project
My students would greatly benefit from having a library of mindfulness resources. This includes mindfulness books, mindfulness cushions, and manipulatives that can be used to explore their texture and sounds in a mindful way. Research has proven that mindfulness practices benefit students academically, socially, behaviorally, and emotionally. The products in this project would be not only for my students, but for other students in our school as well. My students are familiar with mindfulness and have benefited greatly from it. So much so, that my students and I share mindful practices with other classes. Having the resources to share as we rotate through classes would increase student interest in engaging in and benefiting from mindfulness practices. Students are better able to regulate their emotions when they have learned mindfulness skills. They are then able to respond to stimuli with a mindful response rather than an unconscious reaction. Students will benefit in all areas.
“When we look at low-performing schools it’s not that these children are unable to learn, it’s that very often they are unavailable to learn,” said Madeline Kronenberg.
“They’re not able to focus; they’re so fixated on other things that are going on in their lives that it’s difficult for them to be able to find space for learning. Our job is to educate these kids and the way you educate them is that they need to be available to learn.” Mindfulness practices will support my students in school.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Tackett and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
