Author School Visits
Today I'm sharing a short blog post about my recent author visit.
My First School Visit
This week, I had the privilege of visiting three classes at Falla Hill Primary School to share mindfulness activities and read Slow Down Amaya.
It has been a while since I have been in a school and a very long time since I've presented in front of a class. I think it was around seven years ago. I used to deliver homelessness prevention and budgeting workshops in secondary schools.
Before my first classroom visit, I felt slighly nervous but after taking a few moments to pause before the session my nerves calmed. When the children came in the classroom and instantly started chatting to me and asking questions I was put at ease by them being interested before I had even started!
During the Sessions
The children were really engaged and they had lots of lovely comments and interesting questions.
I tried to remember as many comments and questions as possible. I plan to create a summary graphic for each school I visit.
The children particularly enjoyed listening to the koshi chimes and practicing mindfulness using their senses with Amaya in the story.
In my author school visits, I introduce children to what mindfulness is with short creative mindfulness activities. These include mindful breathing with a Hoberman sphere (or breathing ball) and mindful listening with instruments.
I found that this format works nicely before reading my mindfulness themed picture book, Slow Down Amaya. I use the story as a way for them to continue practicing their mindful listening.
Impactful Discussions
During the sessions, there is time for the children to ask questions during the mindfulness activities and after the book reading.
There were lot's of great questions.
One question was from a primary 1 child who asked, “What made you write the book?”
I spoke to them about diversity and inclusion, explaining that I wanted to have people who aren't included in books very often represented in my book. I also told them that quite a lot of children might not know about mindfulness and that I wanted to share it with them through my book.
Speaking about this led to a discussion about ADHD and Autism.
One of the children in the class asked “What is Autism?” another child told me they had a friend who has ADHD. It was great to chat about this with 5 and 6 year olds.
The funniest question I was asked was “how do you fit everything in your bag?”
To which I answered, it's a very big bag!
For context the items I bring to my visits are:
Soft toy monkey, called Maurice
Koshi chime
Breathing ball
Manjïrà chimes
Slow Down Amaya
Waterbottle
Copies of book orders
I can see why he was wondering how everything fitted inside!
Future School Visits
I'm excited about my next school visits this month. I will be meeting p1/2 pupils from Murrayburn Primary School and four classes of p1 and p2 children at Duddingston Primary School.
If you are in Edinburgh and would like an author school visit after the summer holidays, visit my author visits page for more information and to enquire.