Join the Fresh Start Challenge!

The staff writers for the wellness section of the New York Times put together a 10 day list of activities to assist their readers in learning new habits for mindful living.

I just did the Day 8 activity of taking gratitude photos which you are shown above. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t stop to appreciate the handiwork of our SSIS gardeners and the design work of Chris B. 🙂

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The following is a wellness integration activity that you can adapt to bring this activity into your teaching>

Mindful Exploration and Photography – Look to design activities in which students mindfully explore their environment inside and outside of their homes and school. Guide them to focus on objects that engage their strengths of curiosity, gratitude, appreciation of beauty and possibly other character strengths. Bring in the See – Think – Wonder thinking routine to help them to be present to really experience what they choose to focus upon. Look to add in a documentation and reflection aspect of the activity by having the students choose from one of the following documentation techniques:

• Take photos
• Draw pictures
• Audio record their descriptions
• ???

The last step is to upload the documentation to their portfolio to then record a reflection from guiding questions. Your questions can bring in the previously mentioned character strengths and/or help the students apply other learning outcomes.