Heart breaths for kids is a calming, mindful breathing activity which encourages children to explore what they love about themselves. They will use their imaginations to think positive thoughts, relax their body and practice mindful breathing. This breathing activitycan help children to learn to focus their minds, increase self awareness and self esteem.
{Related Post: Birthday Cake Breaths: A Mindful Breathing Exercise for Children.}
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What are Heart Breaths
Heart breaths is a mindful breathing activity, that will help us to practice showing ourselves kindness and self love. This activity gives us a chance to pause and choose a kind action (breathing calmly) and kind thought (something we love about ourselves).
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How to take a Heart Breath
- Share poster from our Heart Breaths activity kit as a visual prompt (optional)
- Share with children the heart breaths rhyme: I can pause and notice, my heart and my mind. Breathing in love and thinking words that are kind.
Heart Breaths Instructions
Step 1. Introduce Heart Breaths
‘Today we are practicing heart breaths. Taking a breath is choosing to be kind to our minds and bodies and giving them a chance to relax and feel calm. We are also going to think about something we love about ourselves and practice kind thoughts. So let’s start.’
Step 2. Spark the Imagination.
First, ask children to imagine that they have a warm ball of light in their hands (cup hands together and ask children to do the same). Ask the child to hold the ball of light very carefully.
‘This ball is full of love. Hold it very gently and don’t drop it!’
Step 4. Now ask children to look at their balls of light and think about something they love about themselves.
‘What colour are your balls of light? Can you feel the energy? Now that you’ve thought about what you love about yourself and charged up the balls of light with love, we will take a breath.’
Step 5. Now ask children to breathe in and bring the ball of light to their hearts, then breathe out and gently shake their hands. Repeat once more.
Step 6. Conclude and reflect
‘Well done, now your heart is filled with love and light.’
A fun game to end is to hold the imaginary ball of light and get the children to pass it around to each other carefully in a circle, they could take turns sharing what they love about themselves.
The posters, script, colouring activity and craft are all available in our Heart Breaths Kit. You’ll also find a heart breaths shape tracing breathing activity in our kit.
Explore and Play
Try out some fun activities to extend the lesson around Heart Breaths, self love and being present. Stories, songs, arts and crafts are all a great ways to explore the topic.
- Read a heart themed book or a story that explores self love
- Explore your strengths using our strengths based affirmation cards {26 Strengths Based Affirmations and Activities for Kids}
- Draw and colour a heart {Printable included in the Heart Breaths Kit]
- Make a Calm Heart Craft {Calm Heart Craft {self love and mindful breathing for kids}
- Make Heart Paper Chains {Printable instructions below and included in the Heart Breaths Kit}
Learning mindful breathing can help kids to develop awareness of their feelings and bodies, help to focus their minds and relax. This simple life skill is a great tool for kids overall wellbeing as they learn to manage the daily challenges in their lives. I hope you enjoy taking a Heart breath whether it’s for you as an adult, with your children or students! Emma x
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