A Mindful Akashian

Lauren Murphy Akashian (ah-KAY-shin), EdD, is an educator seeking to build a community of teachers who share their ideas for incorporating mindfulness into their classrooms.

Make any occasion a Mindful Akashian

Category: Social & Emotional Learning

  • Shout Out!

    Shout out to Ms. Tobin and her 3rd graders at the Ditson School in Billerica for their Chalk the Walk day. These students left kind, thoughtful, and positive messages on the sidewalk in front of their school for everyone walking by to enjoy. This is great idea for anytime of year, at any grade level,…

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  • Mindfulness Monday: Gratitude Tree

    For today’s activity I brought in a small tree and gave each student a strip of paper with a hole punched through and a piece of twine to knot in a circle. I asked students to write what they are grateful for on the strip of paper and adorn the tree with their evidence of…

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  • Mindfulness Monday: Dreamcatchers

    Another great student suggestion lead to today’s Mindfulness Monday activity! We made dreamcatchers and I’ve posted a how-to video below. This activity involves more steps than usual so it is more of an intermediate level activity and not my first choice for beginners, but it is a great way to promote persistence. I love how…

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  • Mindfulness Monday: Orbeez Stress Balls

    The winner of our poll is Orbeez Stress Balls. Thank you to everyone who voted! My students were very excited to see the bucket of water beads and balloons I had out on the desk for this activity. They got right to work filling the balloons with the water beads. They found it worked best…

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  • Student Suggestions

    This week I received two great mindfulness activity suggestions from students. One was to create stress balls out of balloons filled with Orbeez. I like this idea because it is a hands-on activity and easy to prep. The other suggestion is to create a sampler of different scents using small cups filled with essential oils.…

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  • Shout Out to the DHS ELA Department!

    I want to thank my amazing department for helping me practice my presentation on SEL & Mindfulness to our faculty next month. They are always willing to listen to my ideas, try new things, and share helpful feedback. I am very luck to work with such amazing colleagues!

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  • Mindfulness Monday: Butter Slime

    I received a student request to make butter slime so Maddie and I did the prep work to make it happen. Since mixing the ingredients can get messy, Maddie prepared the slime base ahead of time. This video demonstrates how to prepare the slime and then combine it with the air dry clay to get…

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  • Shout Out!

    I’d like to give a shout out to Ms. Surrette for sharing her Mental Health Awareness calendar with our school. Ms. Surrette is challenging the freshmen with little daily ideas to improve their mental health for May. She is encouraging other teachers in our school to ask their students if they have seen the calendar…

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  • Mindfulness Monday: Origami Pinwheels

    Today’s activity was an extension of the mindful sticker activity from a few weeks ago. When I was describing the different types of stickers, one student said her favorite one was the pinwheel and that we should make them for an activity. I loved her suggestion and decided to try it. I gave each student…

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  • Mindfulness Monday: Earth Day Tear Art

    In honor of Earth Day, we used tear art to create a tribute to the earth. I gave each student a page with the shape of the earth to use as a guideline for creating the tear art. For the tear art, students tear pieces of construction paper and glue them onto the earth pattern.

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