A Mindful Monday

 Monday mornings are usually pretty tough on everyone. It's sometimes so hard to come back to school after an enjoyable weekend at home. It's sometimes hard to get back into the routines and follow expectations on a Monday. Instead of allowing ourselves to get worked up when things don't go our way, or activities may not go as planned, and even this rainy cold weather preventing us from doing too much outside we can always look to the opportunities these challenges bring us. There's always a bright side, right? 

This morning, instead of leaning into the Monday blues, the boys took some time to reconnect and focus before getting started with our day. Painting has been one of the more preferred activities in the classroom. Almost everyone is itching to get to the table to pick up a brush and express themselves through colors and brush strokes. 

The shells were quite fun to paint. B, N, and A all took the time to first explore the texture of the shell before putting some paint and glitter onto them. They ran their fingers over the ridges, flipped them over to feel the smooth inside, and even looked at it quite closely to get a better understanding of the exoskeleton before putting paint onto it. 

N spent a decent amount of time here. He really took the time to use small brushes to get the paint into each individual crack. He stuck to just one color for the most part, but did quite a nice job following the expectations of the activity. 

Starting our mornings off this way with preferred activities and a chance for the kids to slowly reconnect to the classroom and become a little more acclimated. A slow start is sometimes the best way to ease into it all.