Explaining mindfulness: The Hungry Seagull

Helping your students to self manage their distractions is very important in todays world. Learning to calm down and relax is key to learning and life. In this lesson we use a short 7 minute story, using metaphor, about how a young seagull discovers the secret to its own survival. Having been lost in the distraction of the flock it learns from two older birds how to relax into a situation and become more focused and attentive to what is going on.

Mindfulness is such a big subject and is hard to explain in a short space of time for students to grasp the concept. In my attempt to support students and teachers to be able to fit mindfulness into the day, this story aims to hit the spot and promote a little more calm in the class room and in peoples lives in general.

Using the Power Point as the lesson plan and prompts for teaching and learning, have the Hungry Seagull ready to play and also the ‘3 Minute breathing space’ or the ‘STOP’ mp3 for playing after the story as part of the students being able to practice a mindful exercise. Then returning to the slides for prompting questioning and reflection.