I kept good on my promise to bring more interesting projects for the middle schoolers. A few expressed interest in math, others expressed interest in flowers, and many of them expressed interest in more focused and detailed work. So, I planned a lesson about mandalas.
I began class by asking the students how stressed out they usually feel on a scale of 1-5. Almost all ranked their stress at 3 or above.
I then talked about mandalas, sharing their origin as a symbol of prayer by Tibetan monks and how it came to modern use by us non-monks as a tool for mindfulness. I explained to them how the way creating, or even just coloring in a mandala, can be a focused and calming task for reducing stress.
Most kids wanted to just color in mandalas, but a few were interested in drawing their own. I passed out graph paper and gave a simple tutorial: divide the page into four quadrants, and mirror whatever is drawn across all of them. They really impressed me with their work, and everyone commented on how much calmer they felt when I asked how their stress level differed at the end of class.
When we got to our second grade class, which was a small group for the second week in a row. We all sat at the same table again and did a group Valentine’s craft.
We asked each student to start by designing a heart in the center of their page, and then pass it around the table and let their neighbors add their own flair to it, one at a time. It started off great, but by the time we made it all the way around the table, the kids were losing interest. I then shifted gears and taught them how to make a string of paper hearts by cutting along a folded piece of paper. We also talked about what it means to show love, and how they each express it at home.
I told the students that I show my love how much I love her by cooking for her, and one child named Miriam indignantly responded, “Well, I don’t know how to cook!” That made me laugh.
