Mindfulness practice involves meditative exercises that teach us that our breath is our best friend, and by simply bringing our attention back to our breath in multiple situations we can find inner calm.

The benefits of mindfulness practice are long, including helping one lower stress, think more clearly and/or with focus, and develop patience and compassion. Schools that bring mindfulness to their student body have seen lower drop-out rates, less incidence of bullying, and a rise in the students' grades. In our day and age, the young are needing instruction on how to navigate within and be present for learning. Mindfulness is a skill one can carry and utilize throughout one's life in most any situation.

Both the fifth and sixth/seventh grades have had a series of lessons in mindfulness so far. The students have been receptive to the work, reporting finding it calming and interesting. The young are naturally mindful as they live in the present moment. A simple one- to two-minute centering exercise can readily work wonders. As part of its work to further instill kindness and cooperation among the student body, the school Care Committee is planning an upcoming workshop for the Grades faculty.

Last week, when reflecting on the use of the breath, one student shared that "the breath is like the beat of the drum in music, then the instruments come in, in time with the beat and in harmony with one another. The mind, he continued, when practicing mindfulness, is like those instruments in harmony."  

Renovations at our East Montpelier campus this past summer yielded wonderful results! Besides the fantastic new flow and calmer experience between classes and the repurposing of the yurt into our music and theater space, Orchard Valley gained a dedicated Woodworking classroom. After five years of moving tables and equipment and reconfiguring grades classrooms into makeshift woodworking spaces, our Woodworking Teacher Heinz Rathmann has his own classroom in which to welcome the students!

"The students enter the woodworking space and are reverent to it. They really step into this different work now," said Heinz. "This is "200% better than before!" The shift allows him more time for tuning into what the students need, instead of the logistics of how to make the different grades classrooms work for woodworking, he shared.

For the younger classes, Heinz still works with the children right in their classrooms--or the Farm and Forest Tepee for the outdoor Kindergarten. The three kindergartens are working with Heinz once a week for four weeks, and "it's been really sweet," he says. "They really learn something as they pound nails into their small birch stumps." 

The Grade 1 students are making round dice that roll, and the finished pieces will stay in the class for Ms. Ginsburg to use in math or language arts activities. Grade 4 is working on Mancala boards, while Grade 5 is whittling with a knife, making small critters. The Grade 6/7 class is working on 3-legged stools, and Grade 8 is whittling figurines which become a representation of themselves. Heinz said, "It's really interesting how that happens."
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