Practise Mindful Breathing with a Pinwheel

Mindful breathing is an amazing technique to help children focus on the present moment. This has additional benefits such as managing anxiety, finding a state of calm, and assisting with overexcitedness.

Mindful breathing is different from regular breathing. It requires the child to think about each step of the breathing process – the breath in and the breath out – as it happens. It also involves slowing the process down by extending the time taken to inhale and exhale. Deep breathing helps slow the heart rate, calm the body, and relax the muscles.

This mindfulness activity adds a visual element to the practice of mindful breathing – the pinwheel! Not only can students enjoy the process of mindfully coloring to create their pinwheel, but they can also then watch the colors and patterns they have created with each exhale!

How to Make a Mindful Breathing Pinwheel

To create a mindful breathing pinwheel, your students will need scissors, glue, an eraser, a paper straw, a thumbtack and a stopper.

Follow these simple steps to create mindful breathing pinwheels with your class.

1. Color in the front of the pinwheel and the small pentagon.
2. Cut along the black lines.
3. Glue each of the black dots into the centre, one on top of another.
4. Glue the pentagon on top, in the centre of the pinwheel.
5. Pinch one end of the paper straw to make it flat.
6. Lay the flat end of the straw on the eraser, and place the center of the pinwheel on top of it.
7. Very carefully push your pin through all the layers of your pinwheel and the straw.
8. Pull the eraser off and put a stopper on the point of the pin.

Decorate the pinwheel with a paper straw, thumbtack and a stopper. While it’s true that pinwheels do turn better on a real pin, the activity includes instructions for a no-pin/split pin assembly, too!

Download This Mindful Breathing Activity

Use the Download button to access the easy-print, black-and-white PDF.