You could have heard a pin drop: mindful maths

I’m really getting into the whole mindfulness movement and the benefits it can bring, both personally and, now, to the children I teach. Tomorrow, I’m starting a series of phase assemblies (I lead UKS2) on mindfulness to see how we can have a play with some of the techniques in our daily routine at school and hopefully I’ll blog about those soon.

However, today something noticeable happened in maths. We’re doing a week on geometry related to the book Leon and the Place Between and today we explored using rotation to create the lantern designs throughout the book. A little way into the lesson, I noticed that silence had descended. Every child was completely focussed on the intricate detail of their design. Fully present, in what I can only describe as a state of flow. Zero distractions. It was so calm and I loved just observing them for a bit.

A mindful time in maths today

It reminded me of another time I had seen this in class: when we created zentangle drawings of animals for our Born to be Wild topic.

So what is it that makes an activity mindful? Comparing these two activities, I think working with a high level of detail is part of it. Perhaps the element of pattern involved too. Now I’m wondering how I can make more activities mindful across the curriculum now…