WF, 10/30/2024 | Wee Friends Early Childhood Program LLC

Good Afternoon!

In the last few weeks, we’ve had conversations with a few families about children talking about the mindful activities at school. We wanted to share with everyone how we implement these activities and why we use them.

Within the last few years, we’ve assembled a collection of “mindful activities” that we offer only at specific times such as a child getting hurt, needing an alone/calm down activity, or simple when a child is upset and needing a reset. We do not allow these activities to be used all of the time because then they lose their “luster” and purpose. Children know when they have a hard time leaving their parent in the morning at drop off or when they get hurt outside, that they can ask for a calm down toy to have at the island—this really helps all of our kids by having an option to turn to when in distress!

We have a variety of activities for a wide range of children. Our younger friends (and really our older kids too!) love exploring our different kinds of putty. We have the ‘thinking putty’ which has animals or sea creatures in putty so children are able to search for specific animals. The other putty changes colors as it’s moved through warm hands. We also have a few different breathing activities where children use their finger to follow along as they work through their breathing. Our older peers have been enjoying the activities that allow them to explore letters. One of the favorites lately is spelling words using letter cubes.

If you have any questions about what calming activity your child leans towards here or need help implementing a system at home or identifying a specific tool/where to find it, we’d love to chat with you about what works for us here at school!