TEACHERS’ NOTES
LESSON ONE:
Brain Training
Let’s Explore Our
Amazing Brain!
© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
Lesson 1 – Our Amazing Brain
Objectives
• Taking responsibility for keeping the mind and body safe and healthy
• Develop understanding of the functions of the prefrontal cortex
• How different parts of the brain work together
• The brain can be changed
Lesson Flow
Let’s explore our
amazing brain!
Naming of parts of
the brain
• Focus on the prefrontal cortex
• Position in the brain and its
function
• Diving – Tom Daley focusing
the attention
Breath
• How many breaths
Paying attention
and concentration
Choices
• We can train our brain to be
more efficient
• Parts of the brain working
together
• Exploring personal
experiences of training
• Impact of training our brain
• Beginning the training –
practices focusing on the
breath
• Recognising choices made
each day and the impact on
their lives
Home Practice
• Counting 10 breaths before an activity
Resources
• Brain model or pictures
• Home practice sheet
© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
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Here we explore the ways in which we can train our mind to shape our brain through simple
exercises and practice.
Ask the children where their brain is. Children may well now point to their heads.
That’s right, our brain is always in our skull. It is an organ of the body. So, where is your
mind?
Children may well point to their heads at this point.
When I say go, we’re now going to clap our hands together quite loudly and then hold our
hands facing each other about 10cm apart. Ready? Go.
After a few seconds of holding hands out..
Where is your mind now?
Children will probably say it is in their hands now.
How do we know that?
Children’s responses may be sensory experiences such as tingling or hot but also that’s where
I’m thinking about just now.
The mind has the power to travel and will be wherever we are focusing or thinking.
TEACHER NOTES:
Here we are introducing the distinction between the brain and the mind. The brain is the
organ in our skull that we can structurally and functionally adapt through concentration
practices we learn through mindfulness. Our mind is different, combining focus of
awareness, thoughts, emotion and body state – much more complex and perhaps less
understood. It is the mind we are training in order to change the brain.
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We are going to introduce you to a way to train the mind. It can be trained just like our
muscles. And training our mind changes our brain.
All our experiences make changes to our brain - learning to dance, playing a musical
instrument, juggling. There is a special word for this – neuroplasticity.
What we’re going to be learning together has been shown by scientists to make particular
changes to our brain that can really help us in life.
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In these lessons we are going to be looking at 4 different parts of the brain.
There are many different areas of the brain and we’re going to look at 4 that we know can
be developed and that work together as a team.
Name the 4 parts and point to the part on the picture as you name them:
1. Prefrontal cortex
2. Hippocampus
3. Amygdala (there are 2 of these)
4. Insula
FOR TEACHER REFERENCE ONLY:
Prefrontal cortex: Makes choices, pays attention and therefore helps us learn more.
Hippocampus: Helps us with our memory and to remember things (linking old and new
experiences).
Amygdala: Just reacts automatically in response to perceived threats. Its job is to keep us
safe, but sometimes it gets in the way of making wise choices.
Insula: – helps us recognise how our body state is (tired, hungry etc.) and helps us to tune in
to how other people are.
© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
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Today we are going to focus on and learn about the prefrontal cortex. This is the team
leader.
Here is the prefrontal cortex. Look at the picture and decide where the prefrontal cortex is
in your brain.
Can you point to where your prefrontal cortex is?
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Remember the difference between the brain and the mind?
The brain is an organ (something inside our body which has a specific job to do), whereas
the mind can be outside of our body – it is where we place our focus or attention.
We are going to train the muscles of our mind in order to change brain. The prefrontal
cortex is involved in all these activities, working with other parts of the brain. Everything
new we learn involves the prefrontal cortex.
© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
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Training your mind can help you with many different things in your life. Many experiences
can be tricky in our lives and it’s good news that, by training our mind, we can make
changes to our brain so that we can get better at dealing with them.
What’s tricky for you?
Give the children some time in learning partners to explore this together. This is intended as
a motivational discussion to help them find specific aspects of their experience where
learning mindfulness may be helpful for them.
Like all sorts of training the more practice we do, the better we get at it.
As a whole class, invite them to give examples of famous people, people they know who got
better at their sport or skill through practising. Can they think of something they have
practised and improved upon?
So we’ll be doing lots of practice together.
This is intended to encourage the children to understand that practice is helpful with
mindfulness too.
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Ask them to give some examples of what they’re good at and how they became good at this.
How did you get to be good at…?
How could you be better at the things you want to be better at?
This offers them the opportunity to explore their personal experience of skill development, as
they will already have experience of developing a skill through practice (even learning to
walk or talk took practice!).
If any of them struggle to think of something they are good at, this may also be a good
opportunity to encourage their friends to support them by making suggestions of what they
think they are good at.
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This slide recognises mindfulness practice is a balanced approach rather than just a problemsolving one. It is as relevant to pleasant, positive experiences as to problematic or
challenging ones.
So training our mind can help us with things in our lives that can feel tricky but…
…it can also help us be happier. Mind training isn’t just about dealing with difficult things in
life.
Training our mind can help us in a variety of ways. For example……
© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
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Remember the prefrontal cortex? The prefrontal cortex helps you to:
[Click]
1. Concentrate and notice
[Click]
2. Make choices
[Click]
3. Pay attention so that we can do our best
…and therefore helps you to learn more.
How many of you would like to be able to…
• Learn new languages?
• Be more creative and inventive?
• Learn new skills?
This is what the prefrontal cortex helps us to be able to do. We can help it get better at
doing this by training our mind.
Teacher’s Note:
Here we are beginning introduce an element of metacognitive awareness - a process of
choosing to notice and know what we are experiencing. It is about being present to our
experience and seeing it clearly as it is, and not how we think it should be.
© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
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Tom Daley: Bring the group’s attention to Tom’s concentration and focus.
Here is an example of someone who has learned to focus and concentrate to help him
perform at his best.
Let’s have a look at him in action. What happens from the beginning of this clip to the point
when he begins to dive? How can you tell that he’s concentrating and focusing on what he’s
doing?
Show clip
As Tom prepares he is clearly a bit anxious at the beginning, ruffling his hair. He then pauses,
puts his hands down by his sides, becomes still and steady, takes a big breath before he
begins his dive. Here we are helping the children to see how he settles himself to allow him
to concentrate on the dive.
For this aspect of the learning we suggest you focus on the fact that he takes a breath as
part of his process of focusing before the dive. This links with the next practice on the
following slide where the children will use their own breath to begin to learn to focus and
concentrate.
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So, let’s begin training our minds! We can use our breathing as a way to train our minds which
will help us to train our concentration.
Let’s have a go!
The explanation of the conditions needed in the classroom for practice described here may need
to be repeated for all the practices through the course or until this happens easily.
The “bubble”. As we do these practices together it is important that you find your own space to
practice. A bit like having a bubble around you. As we do these practices it’s important not to be
looking around at other people. You can choose to have your eyes closed or just looking gently
at the table in front of you. It’s important to give everyone a chance to practice if they want to,
even if you don’t at that moment. Respect your friends as we do this together.
Let’s prepare by sitting up on the chair in a strong position. Let’s begin by putting our feet flat
on the floor, really feeling the feet on the floor. Sitting tall with your back away from the back
of the chair. Letting the spine be tall and the back of the neck long so that the back is strong but
not tight. And now let’s place one hand on your chest and the other one on your tummy.
I wonder if you can begin to notice what this feels like? Here are some questions to help you
explore what you are noticing.
Ask these questions one at a time but you do not need the children to answer out loud.
• Can you feel your body moving as you breathe?
• Can you feel the in breath …and the out breath?
• Is the movement of breath fast or slow?
• Do you feel it in both your tummy and your chest or in just one place?
• Now let’s choose to really concentrate and begin to notice particularly your in-breath.
Allow some time for them to do this.
Now let’s begin to count how many in breaths we breathe in one minute. Starting to count
when you hear the bell and stopping when you hear the bell at the end.
It is not necessary to share the number of breaths they counted – we’re not making this a
competition! We are just wanting them to concentrate and notice.
(If finishing the session here, you might want to just want to mention that you look forward to
trying this exercise with them again next time, and seeing if there is any difference in how it
feels/what they notice).
© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
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© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
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Part 2 Recap
Do you remember how last time we began training our minds by counting our breaths?
Let’s try this again…
Start this part of the lesson by revisiting the breath counting practice. Refer again to the
bubble and strong position described last time.
I wonder if you can begin to notice what this feels like? Let’s begin to explore what you are
noticing.
Refer back to page 13 for full instructions.
© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
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Part 2 Recap
Last time we introduced you to the brain. Shall we say these parts of the brain together?
Which part did we discuss in more detail? Prefrontal cortex. Team leader.
Can you remember what the pre-frontal cortex helps us with?
AS A REMINDER…
Prefrontal cortex: Makes choices, pays attention and therefore helps us learn more.
Hippocampus: Helps us with our memory and to remember things (linking old and new
experiences).
Amygdala: They just react automatically in response to perceived threat. Its job is to keep us
safe, but sometimes it gets in the way of making wise choices.
Insula: – helps us recognise how our body state is (tired, hungry etc.) and helps us to tune in
to how other people are.
© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015
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Part 2 Recap
Do you remember watching Tom Daley preparing for a dive? What did he do to help him
concentrate before he dived?
How do you think Tom would have dived if he wasn’t concentrating? If his mind was
somewhere else?
Let’s explore the power of concentration further.
Here we are wanting to focus especially on concentration and how concentration can
have a powerful impact on what we do. The settling and calming aspects of what might
be seen in Tom’s dive will be explored in later lessons, so best to stay with the
focus/concentration elements at this point.
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What is concentration? How do you know when you are concentrating? How
does it help you? Hear their answers.
When we train the mind, it can be powerful in many, many different ways.
Click through the pictures illustrating situations where concentration is important
In learning partners, children to discuss ways that they notice themselves
concentrating and how it is different when they don’t concentrate.
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The prefrontal cortex helps us to concentrate on making choices and therefore do our best.
We have seen how concentration can help us in lots of different ways. Learning to
concentrate can also really help you to make choices. Let’s explore making choices further
now.
Here we are moving to another aspect of prefrontal cortex functioning: choices/decisions.
This works in connection with concentration and in partnership these help us do our best.
Clear awareness through concentration helps us to have the necessary information to make
appropriate/wise choices. If you are lost in a strange town you have to find out where you
are first and then this will let you choose where you need to go.
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Who knows the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears?
Discuss the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears with your learning partner. What do you
remember about the story?
You can provide a quick overview of the story if the children need it, or choose a story that is
appropriate where decision making is necessary and consequential.
More directed questions follow on the next slide….
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Discuss each question in learning partners.
These questions could be given one at a time or all the questions together and bring back to
a whole class discussion afterwards.
This is intended to help them:
• Recognise and identify choices
• See that choices are always possible/available
• Choices have consequences
• They have control over their choices
To illustrate this further, the next slide invites the children to get engaged in the story of
Goldilocks.
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Here we are inviting the children to put themselves in Goldilocks’s shoes and see what could
have influenced her in the choices she made. We are pointing to the fact that both body and
mind may influence choices we make.
So let’s see how different things might influence/change her decisions?
• What if she was really hungry and thirsty?
• What is she was scared?
• What if she was lonely?
• What if she was cold and tired?
• What is she was mischievous?
• What if she was curious?
Draw out the links to mind and body states/feelings and thoughts in each of these
questions.
Can you think of anything else that might have made a difference to what she chose?
The children are being encouraged to empathise with Goldilocks here, putting themselves in
her shoes and linking to their own learning. Maybe their own learning such as, going into a
stranger’s house, may be named here.
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Can you name one choice you have made today?
Give examples:
Did you choose to get out of bed when told? Did you choose what to wear today?
What did you have for breakfast? What else did you choose today?
Discuss in pairs.
Look out for the answers that point to the fact that mostly we don’t even notice the choices
we make - or even remember doing something! Often we are on automatic pilot and aren’t
consciously choosing, just acting automatically. Mindfulness can help us be awake of our
experiences and let them give us some helpful clues to guide us in making choices.
So what have we learned about choices?
Give them time to discuss this in the class to let the learning emerge. You can underline this
learning as it arises in the class and offer any of the points below that aren’t named.
• We have to make many choices in a day.
• We can train our brain to be aware of when we make those choices and in which
direction we go.
• By training our mind we learn to become more aware of our feelings and thoughts which
will hopefully…
• Help us to make appropriate choices.
• Give us more control and choice in what our mind does.
Sometimes your body can take over and what it’s telling you is very strong like when we’re
very hungry or tired. It may be just right that you only listen to your body at those times.
Sometimes are mind tells us things that can be powerful too.
Training your mind can help you notice and then to help you make your choices.
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So, what have we learned today? What can you remember?
Once discussed, click through the key words (in bold below) on the slide.
We can train our mind to shape our brain (main objective)
We are going to learn how to do this together
We can use our breath as a way to train our focus of attention
Introduction to four different parts of the brain
Introduction to the brain and the mind
The prefrontal cortex – where it is, and how it helps us (concentration, choice, doing our
best).
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Explain that this is their first home practice.
Practice will help you train your mind, which will then change your brain. What have we
done today that has helped us practise concentration?
So as well as doing practices at school we will also be encouraging you to try them at home
or in your own time.
This first practice is similar to the counting breaths we did earlier. But this time we would
like you to count 10 in-breaths before something you will be doing this week. You might
choose to do it before homework, playing a sport, playing music, dancing etc.
So what we are doing is choosing to practise concentrating and noticing, and we are using
our breathing to do this.
Have a go, and I look forward to hearing all about what you noticed next time.
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NOTES
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NOTES
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© Mindfulness in Schools Project, 2015