Be Mindful
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so when it came time for my turn to come up with an activity for Senior Primary (ages 8-11) in our congregation, I decided to teach them mindfulness activities. I thought it would be one of the hardest activities to do, because teaching someone to still the mind or to tune into their bodies is rather a tough concept. And I wanted to do it in a way that made it seem normal--so no crystals, no burning incense or candles, no divining rods. What I ended up doing is coming up with several different mindfulness activities, and assigning each to a random object I placed in a bag so that the children could select an object to determine what mindfulness thing we practiced. We did Guided imagery--I had them close their eyes while I told them to imagine walking on a beach, feeling the sand beneath their feet, hearing the crash of waves, coming up to a fire where Jesus had fish and bread for them, and imagining what their conversation would be. Body scan--I