Hardwiring Happiness

Evoking Happy Memories

A Lesson To Try In The New Year

Curriculum connections

• Reflection
• Writing and vocabulary development
• Music appreciation
• Social and emotional learning

REFLECTION ON A LESSON I DID LAST YEAR AND WILL DO AGAIN IN JANUARY!

Today was the first day of the year with “frost on the pumpkin”. The children bustled in with rosy cheeks and uncontained excitement. First, I had them do a mindfulness practice of remembering a happy snowy time. We sat with that feeling and I asked them to allow it into their face, hands and every cell in their bodies. Smiles began all around. I had them grab their coats and told them to look very carefully at the earth for signs that winter was coming. We ran around the school grounds and saw ice crystals, plants wilted in the vegetable garden and crunchy gravel packed with ice. They looked to the sky that held snowy clouds and raised their hands begging for snow.

Then they ran as hard as they could and sucked in the frosty, cold air. Brains and body ready, the children went to their desks and wrote about the happy time in the snow with a huge vocabulary bank on the board to choose words from. As they were writing, I would stop them and have them “sink” into the memory. With “Let it Snow” playing from a CD, player the room was humming. Later in the afternoon we cut out snowflakes and hung them from the ceiling, talking about winter times.

All day long I had them come back to a happy time and feel it in their bodies… By the time the bell rang to go home they were bursting out the door… literally, with smiles and hopes of snowflakes for the long weekend.

The weather forecast for Vancouver is clear and cold… let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Michele Lilyanna