Setting the tone activities, Warm up activities

Meditation

Meditation provides an opportunity for students to relax before or after teaching.

Click on the CC icon in the bottom right corner of the video to turn on closed captions.

With Nadine Aboulmagd

Educator prep: None

Student prep: None

Asynchronous

Video conferencing

Duration: 5-30 mins

Activity purpose

Opportunity for students to relax before or after teaching.

Useful for

Wellbeing.

Preparation

Open a 5 minute meditation video, like this one or any others you prefer
This is a 5 minute guided meditation focusing on the breath. This is beneficial for everyone and can be done anytime during the day, either as needed or as a daily practice. I often use this either at the start or at the very end of my class with my students. I sometimes lead the meditation myself, or play a guided meditation video. I’ve found that students remarkably benefit from meditating for 5 minutes and they often tell me that they don't remember the last time they just sat still. I teach adults and naturally many are stressed because of their jobs, family obligations or anything under the sun, really. So since many of us aren’t in the habit of locating time for ourselves to relax, and since they’ve already carved out the class time in their busy schedules, I like to give them 5 minutes back for themselves.

Instructions

This is recommended to be an optional activity, so you can say so to students, but more often than not they stick around for it.

Recommend they close their video so they aren't self conscious of others watching them, and inside a classroom invite them to turn around and face the wall so they experience this also without worrying about others looking at them therefore interfering with their attention and focus on the practice.

Explain that this is not a religious practice or related to any particular faith, it is rather a simple guided relaxation session.