Healthy habits
Mindfulness and Meditation
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Introduction – Mindfulness and Meditation: Finding Calm in a Busy World
In this introductory activity, children explore the connection between mindfulness and well-being through observation and reflection. The video features a real-world example from Iceland, where Gavin and Jack demonstrate how taking time to slow down and focus on the present can support both physical and mental health—by reducing stress (lower cortisol levels), improving emotional regulation, and boosting focus and creativity.
Core Skill: Scientific understanding of the benefits of mindfulness on the brain and body
This week, we’re learning how to slow down our busy minds—and why that matters!
Gavin and Jack filmed this lesson inside a volcano in Iceland, where they discovered something powerful: when we pause and breathe, we give our brains the chance to reset—and we feel calmer and more focused because of it.
Too many thoughts racing around can leave us feeling tired, stressed, or overwhelmed. But taking just 15 minutes to sit quietly and breathe can help us feel more peaceful, more focused, and ready to take on the day.
Your challenge this week is to practise a short mindfulness activity each day. Try sitting somewhere quiet, closing your eyes, and slowly breathing in and out. Then write in your Healthy Habits booklet how it made you feel.
At the end of the week, you’ll share your ideas with your classmates—and maybe help someone else discover the power of mindfulness too!
Click the link to watch this week’s video with Gavin and Jack.
Important – Download Your Healthy Habits Booklet
This week, students will use a provided template to begin designing their Healthy Habits booklet. Emphasise the importance of keeping all content within the dotted safe zone to ensure nothing is cut off if printed. This activity blends creative expression with mindful reflection, resulting in a personal keepsake that celebrates their growth throughout the program.
Core Skill: Structured creativity and presentation awareness
Over the next ten weeks, this booklet is going to be all about you—your thoughts, your reflections, and your journey towards a calmer, more focused you. Each week, you’ll explore a different healthy habit, and you’ll add your own writing, drawings, and ideas into the pages.
We’ve given you a special template to help you stay organised. Think of it like your mindfulness journal. You can personalise it—change the colours, decorate the pages, and really make it your own. Just one important thing—make sure everything stays inside the dotted line (called the safe zone). That way, if you decide to print your book or upload it to the Upschool library, none of your work will be cut off.
Every day, you’ll come back to your booklet to record something—maybe how you felt after a mindfulness session, a peaceful moment you noticed, or a drawing that captures your calm space. Over time, it’ll become a collection of your thoughts, your habits, and your growth.
By the end of the ten weeks, you’ll have a finished book that shows how far you’ve come. You might even want to print a copy and keep it as a reminder of the calm, focus, and healthy habits you’ve built.
Weekly Keywords
In this activity, students receive a task card with foundational vocabulary related to mindfulness and meditation. Their challenge is to explain each term in the simplest way possible, helping them build a strong understanding of how mindful practices support the brain and body.
This exercise supports clear thinking and encourages discussion about emotional awareness, focus, and wellbeing, laying the foundation for future lessons on managing stress and staying balanced in everyday life.
On the task card provided, you’ll find a list of words related to mindfulness and meditation. Your challenge is to explain each word in the simplest way possible.
This activity will help you understand important ideas about how mindfulness affects your brain, mood, and body. It’s a great way to prepare for future discussions on how to stay calm, focused, and emotionally strong in a busy world.
Quote of the Week – Thich Nhat Hanh
In this activity, students reflect on an inspirational quote by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Students will write down or illustrate the quote and explore its meaning, focusing on the power of breathing, presence, and emotional awareness.
The activity encourages students to recognise how mindfulness can help them manage stress, build resilience, and strengthen their connection with themselves and others. It fosters self-awareness, calm thinking, and healthy habits that support wellbeing in everyday life.
This week’s quote is about finding calm and being present in the moment:
“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
Write this quote into your Healthy Habits booklet, decorate it, or draw something that shows what it means to you.
Then, take a moment to reflect: What helps you feel calm? Is it quiet time alone? A peaceful walk? Taking slow, deep breaths?
You might want to write about a time when you felt overwhelmed but calmed yourself with breathing—or talk to a friend about how they relax when they’re feeling stressed.
Let this quote remind you: your breath is always with you, and it can help you feel grounded whenever life feels a little too loud.
Design Your Information Card – The Power of Mindfulness
In this task, students design an information card showing how mindfulness and meditation support wellbeing. They’ll include visuals and practical tips, drawing on what they’ve learned from the video and their own daily experiences.
Encourage thoughtful design and personal reflection—what do they notice about how they feel when they take time to breathe, slow down, or clear their mind?
Core Skill: Synthesising information through visual and written communication
In this activity, your job is to make an information card about how mindfulness and meditation can help your body and mind feel better.
Start by designing a picture that shows someone practising mindfulness. It could be someone sitting quietly with their eyes closed, breathing deeply in nature, listening carefully, or enjoying a peaceful moment. Use images or drawings that remind you of feeling calm, focused, and in control.
Next, write your own top tips or reasons why mindfulness is important. You can use examples from our video, like how deep breathing helps reduce stress, improve focus, calm big emotions, and boost creativity.
When you're done, share your card with your class community so everyone can learn how mindfulness can bring more peace and balance into their day. This card will go into your Healthy Habits booklet—a collection of smart advice to help you and others feel calm, centred, and strong.
Design Your Mindfulness Page – 6 Ways to Practise Calm
In this activity, students will create a page in their booklet that highlights three simple, practical ways to practise mindfulness in their daily lives. They’ll begin with your example, then brainstorm and present their own ideas using both writing and visuals.
This encourages thoughtful reflection on how mindfulness supports wellbeing and helps students express their ideas clearly and creatively.
Core Skill: Applying personal research and creativity to promote wellbeing through everyday mindfulness
In this activity, your task is to create a page in your Healthy Habits booklet showing 6 ways you can practise mindfulness in your daily life. First, look at my example, which includes ideas like sitting quietly with your eyes closed, taking deep breaths before bed, listening to calming sounds, or going for a peaceful walk in nature.
Then, using your own ideas and a bit of research, design your own creative page. Think carefully about how you can share your tips clearly—use pictures, colour, and easy-to-read writing to help others understand.
Once you’ve finished, your page will be added to your Healthy Habits booklet to help others see how mindfulness can improve focus, reduce stress, and bring more calm into our lives.
Track Your Mood – How Does Mindfulness Affect Your Sense of Peace?
In this activity, students will track their emotions daily using a simple task card scale. After practising mindfulness, they’ll reflect on any changes they notice in how they feel. Encourage them to connect their mindfulness experiences with their emotional state and look for patterns across the week.
This supports emotional awareness, self-regulation, and helps students understand how mindful habits can positively affect their sense of peace and wellbeing.
Core Skill: Self-monitoring and emotional reflection through experiential learning
Now that you’ve learned how mindfulness can help you manage your emotions, it’s time to track how you feel each day after practising it.
This week, use the task card opposite to record your mindfulness activity and how you’re feeling. After taking a moment to breathe deeply, sit quietly, or focus on the present, check in with yourself: Do you feel calm? Happy? Frustrated? Energetic? Peaceful?
Circle the emotion that matches how you feel, and write a short note about what you did and what might have influenced your mood.
By the end of the week, look back. Which activities helped you feel more peaceful? Did practising mindfulness change the way you felt inside? Let’s find out how a few quiet minutes each day can affect your emotions—and your sense of peace—one breath at a time.
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Spreading the Word - Weekly Community Challenge
In this activity, students will select actions from a task card to apply their knowledge of hydration in real-world contexts, focusing on helping others stay hydrated. This encourages leadership by empowering students to independently choose and carry out tasks that promote health in their community.
The emphasis on real-world application helps foster a sense of responsibility and initiative, allowing students to learn from their experiences, whether they succeed or not. This approach nurtures independence and reinforces the value of effort in encouraging others to maintain healthy hydration habits.
Choose an action from the task card and use your new knowledge to make the lives of others better by encouraging good hydration habits. It doesn’t matter which action you choose—what matters is that you share your knowledge to help others stay hydrated, healthy, and happy.
You can choose as many actions as you like from the list, such as reminding someone to carry a water bottle, encouraging a friend to drink a glass of water before meals, or setting up a "hydration reminder" challenge. And remember, it’s all about making an effort and having fun, not about getting perfect results!
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Weekly Art Therapy – Mindful Colouring Calm
This weekly art activity encourages mindfulness and relaxation as part of a healthy emotional routine. Teachers should introduce it with warmth and calm, creating an atmosphere that signals it’s time to slow down and focus inward.
Allow children the freedom to choose where they sit—whether it’s a quiet corner of the classroom or a peaceful outdoor spot—and consider setting aside a regular weekly time for this mindful creative break. This activity can also be shared with families to support mindfulness practices at home.
Encourage children to focus on the process rather than the final product, and to enjoy the simple act of being present, creative, and calm in the moment.
Each week, we’ll share a fun and relaxing art activity with you. Your job? Simply take a moment to slow down, find a quiet spot—maybe in your room, outside in the garden, or anywhere you feel calm—and get creative.
Grab your favourite colouring pencils, set up a soft light or sit near a window, and if you like, play some peaceful music in the background. Then colour in the picture on the next page and let your imagination flow.
Art is a wonderful way to practise mindfulness. It helps you focus on the present moment, quiet your thoughts, and find a sense of peace. It can even improve your mood and make you feel more relaxed and centred.
This is your time to pause and breathe—there’s no right or wrong. Just enjoy the process and be fully in the moment.
My Weekly Mood Diary
This activity supports children in tracking their daily emotions using a simple symbol-based diary. Teachers should encourage a quiet moment of reflection each day, helping students connect changes in their mood to their mindfulness practice and the moments of stillness they experienced.
This promotes mindfulness, emotional regulation, and greater self-awareness. Emphasise that the diary is private, creating a safe space for honest and personal reflection.
As you work through each activity this week, take a quiet moment at the end of each day to check in with yourself. How did you feel today? Did practising mindfulness help you feel calmer or more focused? Were there times you felt peaceful, frustrated, tired, or happy?
Using the task card provided, choose a symbol that best shows your emotion—happy, okay, or not great. Add it to your diary and write a short note about what may have caused that feeling. Was it something you did, a moment of stillness, or the way you chose to breathe and slow down?
By the end of the week, you might start to see patterns. Maybe you feel better on days when you take time to pause and be present. These discoveries help you understand yourself better and show how mindfulness affects your mood and sense of peace.
This diary is just for you. You don’t need to share it with anyone. It’s your own space to reflect, learn, and be proud of the choices you’re making to look after your mind and body.
Weekly Quiz: The Power of Mindfulness
Students will complete a ten-question quiz to reinforce their understanding of how mindfulness supports health, focus, sleep, and emotional wellbeing. A score of 80% or higher earns a certificate, with eight to collect across the course.
This activity promotes knowledge retention, encourages ongoing engagement, and celebrates progress as students build lifelong habits for managing stress and finding calm.
Core Skill: Reinforcing content knowledge through assessment and reward
This week, you’ll take a fun quiz all about the power of mindfulness and meditation. After rewatching the video, your task is to answer ten questions about how mindfulness affects your emotions, focus, sleep, and overall wellbeing—and how taking quiet moments each day can help you feel calmer and more in control.
If you score 80% or more, you’ll earn a special certificate to celebrate your learning—and it will be emailed straight to you. There are 8 certificates to collect in total, so give it your best and keep learning!
Good luck—you’ve got this!