When I am stressed, yoga helps me to relax and regain my focus. It makes me feel cool, calm and confident.
- Linda, Grade 4
Mindful Practices empowers teachers and students through yoga and wellness a more effective educational environment.
Mindful Practices brings a student-centered and culturally relevant approach to wellness education. The organization features educators, social workers, dancers and administrators who display versatility in their approach to engaging teachers, students and communities from all walks of life.
Mindful Practices offers extensive and engaging programming for school districts, such as recess, after school and social-emotional learning programs, and professional development workshops.
Cooling Down Your Classroom Curriculum Guide
Mindful Practices definitive yoga and wellness classroom management guide offers over 190 pages of Yoga-centered wellness designed for teachers interested in cultivating a relaxed classroom environment. Strategies teach students skills that help them recognize and mindfully address their internal and external stressors, thus encouraging higher productivity and focused classroom behavior.
Quiet a rowdy classroom. Energize drowsy students. Relax, breath, and return to a positive learning environment in minutes.
September 10, 2014
Mindful Practices' founder Carla Tantillo just posted an article on Social-Emotional Learning on Council for Exceptional Children's blog. Here's a snippet of the post:
Some of the most powerful moments when including yoga in our classrooms happen as students set their intentions for what they wish to ‘let go’ or ‘change’ in the world around them. I’ve heard no bullying and more kindness uttered as desires – and once to the delight of his class, a student set the intention for extra curly fries at lunch. Be it serious or silly, it’s inspiring to observe young people use yoga as a tool to help them reflect on and navigate their ever-changing worlds. Often the image we see in the media of kids practicing yoga includes cute and contented little ones balancing on one leg in tree pose or meditating with an adoring teacher looking on. While this image isn’t completely inaccurate – after all, yoga kids are cute and their teachers do typically adore them – it doesn’t fully depict deep contextual undercurrents that speak to our students’ social-emotional learning needs.
Carla Tantillo will be presenting at the National Association of Elementary School Principals Conference
July 5, 2014
Mindful Practices is pleased to announce that founder Carla Tantillo will be presenting at the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP)
Sitting is Destroying our Students Brains! Getting Them Up Off Their Derrieres. | Thursday, July 10th from 3:15 – 4:45: Physical activity in the classroom helps activate the brain, improve on-task behavior during academic instruction time, and increases daily physical activity levels. An easy way to get exercise is by building in natural movement breaks throughout the day. When students are physically active, they are more ready to learn.
Administrator Self-Care: Taking Care of YOU! | Saturday, July 12th from 10:15 – 11:45: You are a school administrator. You are on duty 52 weeks a year, 24 hours a day, 1440 minutes each day. You are connected to your laptop, iPad, tablet and iPhone. You are on constant overload. This highly interactive session will give you strategies to take care of YOU!
July 1, 2014
Carla Tantillo recently spoke at the 2014 CEC conference in Philadelphia where Josh Wigen, Physical Education Teacher at Riverside Youth Correctional Facility in Boulder, MT was in attendance. Carla's talk inspired Mr. Wigen to create his own PE activity for his students. We we're thrilled to hear of the success of Josh’s Fitness Station Activity using our very own Large Yoga Pose Cards and are very grateful to have the opportunity to share the activity on our website.
If you’ve created programs inspired by our Yoga materials, reach out, we would love to hear from you and share your activities with our community.
May 27, 2014
Join Mindful Practices for an intensive, one-day training retreat to learn the art of integrating Wellness, Yoga and SEL into the classroom.All participants will receive a copy of our book Cooling Down Your Classroom, a teacher-friendly guide to incorporating wellness and SEL into the classroom.
April 14, 2014
Join Mindful Practices for an intensive training weekend in the art of integrating wellness and yoga into your classroom! All participants will receive a copy of our book Cooling Down Your Classroom, a teacher-friendly guide to incorporating wellness and SEL into the classroom.
October 15, 2013
Carla Tantillo and Lara Veon have written another very informative blog article for the Whole Child blog discussing resilience. In the article Carla and Lara discuss five strategies for integrating resiliency development into the classroom: create safety and structure, incremental and attainable goals, connectedness, opportunities for reflection and modeling resiliency.
Read the full article over and The Whole Child blog and learn five effective strategies to integrate resilience into your classroom.
September 9, 2013
Arne Duncan, our nation's dedicated Secretary of Education, mailed Mindful Practices’ founder, Carla Tantillo, a thoughtful note after receiving a copy of our book, Cooling Down Your Classroom. The entire Mindful Practices team is truly honored. A big thank you to Brenda Girton-Mitchell and Arne Duncan.
If you are interested in learning how to cultivate a positive learning environment through wellness and yoga, pick up a copy of Cooling Down Your Classroom today.
July 8, 2013
Mindful Practices is excited to team up with Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago Summer of Learning 2013 initiative. Mindful Practices will teach program participants many different yoga poses and flow sequences and the opportunity to earn the Cool & Calm Yoga badge. The Chicago Summer of Learning badges are digital records of skills, achievements and participation. More than 100 organizations across the city have joined forces to integrate learning into summer activities for youth of all ages in every Chicago neighborhood. Continue reading about the Cool & Calm Yoga badge