Included in this blog are YouTube Videos that Teach Calming Techniques for Kids. By providing these calming activities for your students, you are allowing them to be more in tune with their emotions and surroundings. By incorporating mindful activities within your daily routines you may see student growth in a variety of areas of self-esteem, social-emotional learning (SEL), and academics.
YouTube videos follow, which are all dedicated to calming techniques with your students. This list of calming technique videos will cover a plethora of information from mindfulness activities through movement activities. However, I am going to stay away from including just deep breathing videos on this list. Deep breathing is a wonderful way for students to calm down and as you will see from the list below, most of these techniques involve deep breathing in one way or another. If you are looking for some deep breathing videos to incorporate throughout your day please check out 25 Breathing Exercises to Calm and Focus Your Students.
Let’s jump right into our first category for calming students. I created seven main categories of calming techniques and mindful practices which have several YouTube videos in each. By no means is this an exhaustive list of calming videos. However, it is a great start to an area you enjoy and could model for your students.
MINDFUL MINUTES VIDEOS
I LOVE mindful minutes! These videos are quick and easy to implement when you are finding you need a quick minute to refocus. These minute-long clips share a nature scene while the students take some deep breaths.
YOGA VIDEOS
I practice yoga and movement for my own self-care. Incorporating some of these practices into your classroom can provide a movement break as well as a sense of calmness. I also take this time to model and teach the use of coping skills. Animal poses have been popular among young children and I found the easiest to teach at the start. The YouTube Playlist from Cosmic Kids Yoga provides some great resources for classroom teachers.
RELAXING BACKGROUNDS
Another activity I found my students enjoy is once a week my class votes on the location where they want to do our group reading. I provide a few locations like the beach, in front of a fireplace, rainforest, etc. Once chosen, I play the background with relaxing sounds and allow the students to read independently, in small groups, or in pairs. There are several options through YouTube that have both music in the background and those without.
POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS
Positive Affirmations are a powerful tool to keep in your Mindful Teacher Toolkit. Affirmations are positive statements that can improve self-esteem and when repeated can assist with stress and making positive changes. I use the affirmation: “I Can Do Hard Things” daily with my students. Using some of these videos in your classroom, you can allow students to choose their favorite affirmation and make it their own. These are some of my favorite videos to teach calming techniques to kids.
MEDITATION VIDEOS
Meditation is another option to include within your practice. This allows others to regulate their emotions and their reaction to stress. These videos are guided meditations for children that focus on zoning in on parts of their body when incorporating deep breathing techniques.
BACKGROUND MUSIC
I constantly play background music while my students are working independently or in small groups. I use this as both a calming technique as well as a classroom management strategy. For voice level control, when my students are getting louder than the expectation, a simple verbal prompt of “Uh-oh, make sure you can hear the music playing”, will allow the students to focus in on the music playing and naturally result in more of a whisper voice. My go to playlist is from Mindful Kids.
VISUALIZATION VIDEOS
Similar to Guided Meditation, Visual Meditations allow you to be the main character in your story. We teach students to go through a picture walk when reading a new story. They look for clues and key details to help with story comprehension. The same rules apply for visualization. During these videos, we listen to a story and picture the details being told. Each story has a different location as we imagine and visualize the majestic location using the vivid description.
I hope that you found some inspiration within these YouTube Videos that Teach Calming Techniques for Kids. What are some effective calming practices that you do in your classroom? Do you utilize any videos off of YouTube that you enjoy sharing? Please let me know in the comments below. Remember, I see you, I hear you and I understand. Practice this positive affirmation with me: Be kind, Be strong, Be You!
Written by: Christopher Olson
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