Make mindfulness practice fun with this playful mindfulness game! This activity uses music to help kids learn core mindfulness skills. Music is known to be able to change your mood. Music can cheer you up, comfort you or even give you the blues.
The “Happy And Sad Music” mindfulness game helps kids:
improve focusing skills,
pay attention to sounds,
and to get in touch with emotions.
Win, win & win!! :-)
Preparing the activity is lots of fun too. All you need to do is to make a playlist with music that expresses different emotions. With older kids you can explore different kinds of emotions, and with younger kids you may want to keep it simple.
Oh and … I made a playlist for you to get started with :-)
Mindfulness Game for Kids: Happy And Sad Music
Purpose: Mindfulness of sounds, Understanding emotions, Focus
Best for: Ages 4+, groups or one-on-one
What you need: A selection of music
Choose songs that elicit different kinds of emotions.
Play the songs one by one, and ask the kids if they think the song is happy or sad.
Then ask them why they think that. What is it that makes the song happy or sad? Is it the pitch, the volume, the speed or the singers voice, or what the singer tells? Continue like this until you’ve tried all songs.
Here’s my “Happy and Sad Songs” playlist … you can use it to build your own list of songs.
I hope you’ll enjoy this activity with the kids!! We sure do :-)
You’ll find 150 playful mindfulness activities in my 5-star rated best selling book:
“The Most Important Mindfulness Book You’ll Ever Buy” – Helen Hudson
Ultimate Mindfulness Activity Book – 150 Playful Mindfulness Activities for Kids and Teens (and Grown-Ups too!)
I wish you many many mindful moments :-)
Chris Bergstrom
Chief Mindfulness Ninja @ Blissful Kids
See also:
If you are new to mindfulness with children OR you want to make practice easy we recommend our online mindfulness courses.
Chris Bergstrom is a bestselling mindfulness author, the founder of BlissfulKids.com, a blog dedicated to children’s mindfulness, and a dad who is thrilled to practice mindfulness with his son. He is a certified mindfulness facilitator and trained to teach mindfulness to students in K-12. He’s also known as “the dad who tried 200+ mindfulness activities” and has taught meditation for more than 15 years.