![]() Journaling/drawing activity: Invite students to go immediately into this creative activity following the guided imagery exercise, preferably without talking.Let students know it is ok to have eyes open or closed, to move in their seat (so long as they are not disrupting others) or be still, and to listen to the visualization or just sit quietly. Invite students to find a comfortable seated position in a chair or on the floor. Guided imagery activity: Tell the class that you will now be sharing a guided imagery or visualization about a peaceful place that anyone can visit at any time.This way of sharing encourages listening before speaking. They can speak whenever someone else is not speaking – no hands-up required. Popcorn sharing: Invite students to share one word that comes to mind when they think about “calm”.Partner turn and listen: What new things about stress did you learn from the video? Share at least 1 new learning.Activate thinking: Introduce your class to the acute stress response - often referred to as the fight-flight-freeze response–through one of these short videos produced by Anxiety Canada: Fight-Flight-Freeze: A Guide to Anxiety for Kids or Fight-Flight-Freeze: Anxiety Explained for Teens, whichever you feel is most suited to your grade level. (5 min).Partner turn and listen: Invite students to share with a partner what they think stress means, and how it affects the body and mind.Part 1- Learning about stress in body and mind (10 min) This lesson supports the Personal Awareness and Responsibility Core Competency of the New BC Curriculum, and builds capacity for the Self-Regulating and Well-Being facets of this competency. It closes with a brief creative writing or drawing activity to help students process what they have learned and felt during this lesson. It then guides students through a visualization exercise that helps them "turn off" the stress response by connecting to a sense of peace and calm that they can return to at any time. This lesson plan introduces students in grades 4 - 7 to the fight-flight-freeze response through educational videos produced by Anxiety Canada. ![]() Lesson Plan: Stress, calm, and your peaceful place (45 min) So while we may not be aware of it, we can feel calm - and even BE calm - in our bones. When we feel calm, our bones are not stimulated to release osteocalcin, and our rest-and-digest nervous system can stay "turned on". This means that our bones play an important role in regulating stress and calm within the body. This hormone works by inhibiting (turning off) our rest-and-digest nervous system, thus activating our sympathetic nervous system and allowing our fight-flight-freeze response to run wild. Osteocalcin, a hormone, is secreted by our bones in response to sudden stressors, and is responsible for jump-starting our body's fight-flight-freeze response (think: that heart pounding, stomach turning, heavy breathing, palms sweating feeling). If you haven't, this new scientific discovery will give you good reason to start! Researchers from the United States have identified that the skeleton (yes, our bones!) plays an essential role in the acute stress response. Be it a chill in the air, a good omen, or something foreboding to come, we might say that we "feel it in our bones" to communicate an intuitive sense of knowing, the source of which lies deep within ourselves.īut have you ever said that you feel calm in your bones? In a rather peculiar turn of speech, we often say that we feel things in our bones. In this way, this lesson aspires to enhance students' ability to find calm within themselves that is, both metaphorically and physiologically speaking, bone-deep. It begins by demystifying what goes on in brain and body when we are feeling stressed–when our fight-flight-freeze response is triggered–and then guides students through an activity that helps "turn off" the stress response, dial back the production of stress hormones such as osteocalcin, and connect with a deep sense of peace within. The following lesson plan nurtures the Secure & Calm Heart-Mind quality by helping students build capacity to regulate their nervous systems. ![]()
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