5 Parts of the Day.
Support your day with Movement.
Mindfulness practices support well-being across the entire day. When integrated into the classroom, they strengthen students’ focus, emotional regulation, and learning readiness—creating the conditions for deeper engagement and academic success.
Good Morning Wake-Up
Movement Practice: Breath of Joy – Chair and Standing Practices
Start your day by checking in with yourself. Mindful movement helps you feel awake, focused, and ready to learn.
Breath of Joy – Chair and Standing Practices
Purpose: Get to know yourself better, learn to notice what and how you are feeling, through an expanded sensory relationship. Build self-awareness and support emotional regulation through broader understanding.
Description:
Sit in a chair or stand. Coordinate breath with movement. The breath is a three-part breath with one big exhale.
- Inhale your first third of breath, bringing your arms straight out in front of you.
- Inhale your second third of breath with your arms straight as wide as a T.
- In the last third of breath, your straight arms move directly overhead, then exhale completely, sweeping your arms down towards the floor. You might feel like a conductor in an orchestra. 3 – 5 breaths is optimal.
Calm the Butterflies
Movement Practice: Shake It Off
Mindful movement helps shift your energy and calm your nervous system. When your body feels safe and regulated, your brain is more open to learning, growth, and possibility.
Shake It Off
Purpose: Move your energy, and change your chemistry. When we impact our chemistry through our energy, we can realign our brains and bring them back online, enabling clearer thinking.
How:
Put on your favorite music and move your body! Bounce it out, jump up and down, side to side, wiggle and shake it off. There is no technical alignment here, nothing to follow or to build upon – just pure, energetic movement and fun!
Get Back in the Zone
Movement Practice: Warrior Sequence
Warrior Sequence
Purpose: Builds strength, stability, and focus while cultivating confidence and resilience.
How:
- Coordinate breath with movement as you follow along with each video.
- Practice each pose and work towards syncing breath with movement to complete the series.
Seventh Inning Stretch
Movement Practice: Partner Heart
Partner Heart
Purpose: Encourages connection, cooperation, and a sense of belonging. As students lean, reach, and link together, they build balance, body awareness, and mindful movement while experiencing support, trust, and shared strength.
How:
- Have students stand in a circle with feet hip-width apart. Each student should be close enough to their neighbors so that their feet touch.
- Assign numbers in clockwise order: 1, 2, 1, 2, etc.
- Students assigned “1”:
- Raise your left arm overhead in a “C” shape.
- Lean gently to the right.
- Lower your right arm at a 45-degree angle toward the floor.
- Students assigned “2”:
- Raise your right arm overhead in a backward “C” shape.
- Lean gently to the left.
- Lower your left arm to a 45-degree angle and interlace your fingers with your partner.
- Together, partners create a heart-shaped structure that feels supported and connected.
- Tip: Encourage students to move slowly and mindfully, maintaining balance and gently pressing into each other for support.
Leave It at the Door
Movement Practice: Gratitude for Your Body
Release the day, build resilience, and honor your efforts. Mindful movement, particularly at the end of the day, helps you reset and step confidently into what’s next.
Gratitude for Your Body
Purpose: Sending appreciation inward—to yourself, just as you are.
Take a moment to notice your body and all the ways it supports you throughout the day. With each movement and breath, silently offer thanks for what your body allows you to feel, do, and experience. Move slowly, honoring your own pace and range of motion.
Movements:
- Mountain → Forward Fold → Mountain
Flow between these shapes, feeling your feet grounding and your spine lengthening.
Repeat 3–5 rounds. - Child’s Pose → Tabletop → Cobra → Child’s Pose
Gently warm the spine, noticing the steady rhythm of breath and movement.
Repeat 3–5 rounds. - Downward Facing Dog → Plank → Upward Facing Dog → Downward Facing Dog
Sense your strength and stability as you transition.
Repeat 3–5 rounds.
