The book reviewed for our April Book Club, âMy Magic Breathâ, is a vibrantly illustrated and meditative book. Best selling author Nick Ortner teams up with & Alison Taylor to encourage children to tap into a space of mindfulness.
Just like doing yoga, listening to soothing music or reading your favourite book, deep breathing has magical effects on your mood. Finding Calm through Mindful Breathing.
Mindful breathing is as simple as taking a deep breath, and just noticing that youâre doing it. Bringing awareness to something we do thousands of times a day can be transformative, as it brings us to present moments and relaxes our body. In this way, mindful breathing is a reminder to pause and think rather than react impulsively. While mindful breathing can allow for individuals to process ânegativeâ feelings, it also gives an opportunity for sincere appreciation and gratitude toward what makes us happy.
Sea Turtles Room Book Review
We have many breathwork and self regulation tools that we use in the Sea Turtles room. The storybook âMy Magic Breathâ created a further sense of understanding to regulating our emotions.
We have grown our understanding of our breathing tools with yoga in the outdoor environment giving the children the opportunity to discover the power of mindfulness and self-regulation. Mother Nature teaches us stillness, patience and space.
We extended this activity with the “Hand full of quiet” pebble meditation. Focusing on four mindful pebbles to practice tapping into inner strength, space, inner stillness and a fresh perspective ,with the rise and fall of the pebbles on our tummy, with each breath. Gentle drumming added another element of relaxation.
Reading “My Magic Breath” after this exercise, provided the opportunity to connect to the incredible illustrated pages. We discussed different feelings and emotions as we matched these feelings to the many colours we recognised in the book.
Extension Activities
The children loved expressing themselves with their own magic breath painting choosing what colours and patterns they felt expressing at the time, spreading them across the page proudly. By introducing activities such as art and discussion, the children were able to further reflect on the book and how they could apply these in their everyday life.
Ultimately, this book has proven to be a great way to further the concepts of mindfulness and self-regulation to young children in a fun, meaningful and engaging way.
Snakes Room Book Review
This book is an easy way to comprehend the benefits of deep breathing and discusses ways that children can discover peace through the magic of mindful breathing. The illustrations are amazing and colourful and show how we can calm our minds when we are mad, happy, excited, or sad through our magic breath.
This book takes a child step-by-step on how to breath so as it aids in releasing their anxieties and worries and replace them with happier thoughts.
What this looks like in the classroom
- Firstly, to help with taking deep breaths as demonstrated in the book, the children blew water paint around through a straw. The children started this process by first using a dripper to drip colour paint on their paper and then blew the paint around the paper. The bigger the breath the more they could blow the paint around.
- Following a week later, after reading the story again and seeing the pictures, we were inspired to re-create it. We used coloured paint and different lines to represent our own magic breath.
- Once completed we placed the pictures on the wall and one at a time the children stood near their picture, closed their eyes, took a deep breath and visualized blowing out their magic breath on the paper and it being captured like a photo.
The art pieces will remain on our wall to remind the children that they have the power to calm their own minds with their magic breath.
What we learned
- When we feel, sad, scared, mad or worried there are things we can do to help ourselves feel calm,
- We can use our breathing to help us focus and appreciate the good things in our lives,
- Practicing mindful breathing calms our nervous system and increases our oxygen levels which has a calming effect on our body.
Children’s voice
After reading the book, the children told me that they liked the book and all the colours.
We had a discussion about feelings, and everyone agreed that they are happy and we had a talk about what makes them happy. This is what they said;
- Cake
- Bikes
- Mummy and Daddy
Educator view
I found this book to be very enjoyable to read and easy to comprehend the skill of on-teaching mindful breathing for my age group. The colourful illustrations engaged the children which allowed the content to naturally flow.
Whatâs next
To extend on our book and keep practicing our ‘Magic Breath’, we will blow bubbles using bubble wands and have fun trying to blow up balloons.
Miss Hannelie x
Dolphins Room Book Review
As our dolphinâs friends are currently learning about all the different emotions and ways to regulate and manage these emotions. ‘My Magic Breath’ was introduced at group time and was enjoyed by all in the dolphinâs room as the children enjoyed taking a deep breath in and blowing out to release the emotion of their choice.
We explored the book for three consecutive days. By the third day the children had already gained the concept of putting their lips together to release their magic breath.
âDo YOU have the magic breath?â our dolphinsâ friends were asked while sitting in a circle at the group time mat.
âOn the count of three letâs seeâ
âTake a deeeeeep breath inâŚand BLOW it out⌠like magicâ
We discovered, we can feel better just by breathing!
We breathed our way through each emotion, the childrenâs reaction was priceless as they found it fun to do.
âMy Magic Breath” explores the power of how having a magic breath can make you feel better by simply mindfully breathing, no matter the emotion. The children enjoyed this story as it took them on the adventure of breathwork and various emotions, they may encounter on a day-to-day basis.
Extended Breathwork
We extended on âMy Magic Breathâ with a book called âBreath Like A Bearâ by Kira Wiuey which focuses on 30 mindful breathwork moments for children to feel calm and focused. We visit these breath works each day at group time, âBreath Like A Bearâ helps young children develop self-awareness, improve focus, and simply stretch their imagination.
The candle breath
- Imagine youâre holding a candle.
- Take a long breath in, and slowly blow the air out towards your candle.
- You want to make your candle flame wiggle, but âŚ. Donât Blow it out!
- Long breath in, slooow breath out.
- Long breath in and slooow breath out.
- Long breath in ⌠and now blow your candle out!
Snake breath
- Make your mouth into the shape of a little O
- Take a long breath in like youâre breathing through the straw.
- As you let it out hiss like a snake
- Take another long breath in, like youâre breathing through a straw.
- As you let it out, Hiss like a snake. Make the âsssssâ sound last as long as you can!
- Try it one more time! Take a loooong breath in and Hissssss on the way out.
- Sit up tall, take another long breath in and just let it all out.
Miss Sabrina x
Little Fish Room Book Review
This is a great book that teaches us to use our breath and breathing techniques to help or adjust our mood and thought patterns.
Itâs ok to have difficult thoughts and emotions running through our heads, but when weâre done with them, itâs time to let them go. Breathwork can be a great tool to help with this.
In the Jalumm (Fish) room, the children enjoy sitting on the yarning circle mat with me. We read the story and I talk about the pictures. The children begin copying the motion of big deep breaths inâŚ. aaaaand letting it all out in a big whoosh of air. Sometimes we get the giggles and thatâs ok.
Focus tips
To give the breath a visual, that sometimes helps the children have more focus, we practice our breath work with the bubble wand.
We load the wand up with the liquid and hold the wand out for them to aim their breath towards. The childrenâs attention span is often extended just a little longer if we use this tool because they all love bubbles and like to try over and over to get a bubble out. Their faces show so much joy when they achieve a bubble or two.
Miss Tash x
Benefits of breathwork
- When we feel sad, scared, mad or worried there are things we can do to help ourselves feel calm.
- Practicing mindful breathing calms our nervous system.
- The magic of taking a deep breath and blowing it out to help us relax.
- Helps children understand that âtrickyâ emotions like worry and sadness are normal and ok.
Extra Tips for Magic Breathing
- Be a role model. Your child will learn magic breathing faster when he sees you doing it every day.
- Practice often. Kids who practice magic breathing every day quickly become little experts at self-calming.
- Combine breathing with play: incorporate play with breathing, making animal sounds.
Our Program
Our ‘Mindful Kids’ resilience program is embedded and modified to every age group. The books and activities we incorporate assist with the teachings of consolidating and harnessing these life long skills.
Each month we review a different book from our book club. Some will correlate tools for children and some will be parent/educator interconnected.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and if there is anything you wish to share, we would love to hear from you.
Thatâs all from the Bright Kids team until next time
Miss Honey-Nicodah x
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