Getting Your School Started

Schools have several options for starting a mindfulness program:

• Hire an Expert: If funding allows, a school can hire an individual or company to design and set up a program. Obviously, this is the easiest but most costly option.
• Train One or More of Your Teachers: Another option is to formally train one or more of your teachers and have them design and implement the program as part of their regular work or as an additional project.
• Teacher with Experience: If you happen to have a teacher with existing experience practicing or teaching mindfulness, then this person could develop and implement the program.
• Find Parent Volunteers: Given the popularity of mindfulness, you may have parents interested in volunteering to spearhead and/or assist with designing a mindfulness program. Many parents are highly motivated to have their child learn a life skill like mindfulness.

Unless you are hiring an expert to design and deliver the entire curriculum, each school must individualize existing school-based mindfulness programs to fit their unique school context: student characteristics, teacher personalities, daily schedule, and community culture. This website is designed to help schools do this easily and affordably.

There are numerous school-based mindfulness programs available for purchase. Some of the leaders in this area include:

MindUP
Developed by the (Goldie) Hawn Foundation, MindUP is the most readily available school-based curricula and one of the first. The program integrates positive psychology (science of happiness), neuroscience, mindfulness, and socio-emotional learning and is designed for K-8 classrooms. This is the most cost-effective option for schools that have teachers and/or parents wanting to design their program. The curriculum for MindUP is listed below.

MindfulSchools.org
Mindful Schools was one of the first organizations to provide formal training in running school-based mindfulness programs for educational professionals. They offer online training, including a teacher certificate program. Their K-12 curriculum is available through the trainings.

CalmClassroom.com
Calm classroom also offers online training for teachers as well as on-site training for creating a school-based mindfulness program.

Mindfullyu.net
Mindfullyu.net provides in-person training in K-12 mindfulness programs, including a mindfulness program specifically designed to improve math performance.

Whether you pursue formal training or not, typically all schools will need to adapt any curriculum to their unique school context. Factors impacting what will work in your school include:

• Time available for lessons: length of session and frequency
• Whether the homeroom teacher will give the lessons or a specialist
• Budget to pay for supplies, such as chimes, food for eating meditation, pebbles, glitter jars, puppets, etc.
• School culture and climate, including general attitude towards mindfulness, as well as the personalities of teachers, administrators, parents, and students.

I created my mindfulness program as a parent volunteer at my children's school using a combination of the following:

• The MindUP curriculum
• The Still Quiet Place curriculum
• Mindfulness Activity Cards
• 4 Pebble Meditation

My primary tools are:

• A chime; each classroom gets one
• Bob, a lizard puppet to demonstrate how the "lizard brain" works
• Glitter jar, recipe at the end of the Moody Cow book