For this practice, you’ll need:
- Colored pencils or crayons
- A piece of paper for each student
- examples of Mandalas (can pull up an image on a projector or draw an simple example on the whiteboard)
In today’s practice, you will Create you own Mindful Mandala. It is a combination of the Mindful Coloring practices of Mindful FreeExpression Coloring and Mindful Mandala Coloring that we learned in our last two Mindfulness activities.
As we learned before, a Mindful Mandala is a pattern that is often in the shape of a circle. Sometimes Mindful Mandalas look like big bright suns, or flowers with lots of petals. Sometimes they look like a circle with a pattern inside of it. You get to choose what your Mindful Mandala looks like, because it is a reflection of your own creativity!
If you feel stuck, here are some steps to begin:
- Drawing a small, medium, or large sized circle in the middle of your paper.
- Pick a pattern to draw all around the outside of the circle. This can be flower petals, rays of the sun, shapes, or any kind of drawing you feel is right. You can choose to only draw the pattern once, or you can keep repeating the pattern so it makes more layers for your Mindful Mandala.
- Pick a pattern to draw inside of the circle. You can draw it around the inside of the circle, or you can fill the whole inside part of the circle with that pattern. You can also choose to draw something that reminds you to be Mindful inside the circle, whatever that may be.
- Now it is time to color! Pick your colors and make your Mindful Mandala a unique expression of you! Whatever you make is perfect.
- The last step is to gaze at your beautiful Mindful Mandala. Spend a minute or so noticing the colors and shapes and patterns of your Mindful Mandala. This is a Mindful Mandala meditation that you can practice anytime you’d like.
Great work everyone. You have now learned how to Create your own Mindful Mandala! You can make Mindful Mandalas on your own at home or during free time (if your teacher says its okay) and you can play around with different patterns and colors every single time if you’d like. Remember, whatever you create is a perfect expression on your creativity!
Teacher’s Tip: Mindful Mandalas can be tied in to lessons at school. If you are working with a theme and would like to bring these in for a future lesson, you can have your students make a Mindful Mandala with patterns related to your lesson in the classroom.
Student’s Tip: You can Create your own Mindful Mandala whenever you have free time. Another great practice is to try your Mindful Mandala meditation either with a new Mindful Mandala, or maybe with one you have already created.