Education Blog

Our current book display is New Year Wellness, located in the library entrance. Are you worried about the upcoming semester, or feel dread about 2018? In the Education Library you can find books on mindfulness, mental health, yoga, meditation, and other topics related to wellness for both teacher and student. Here is a small sampling of the books we have showcased:

Books for Young Children

What do you do when you’re having a bad day? Meditation is an Open Sky tells kids that you simply need to find a quiet place, sit down, and meditate. This picture book describes meditation in a simple way so that kids of any age can learn how to feel calm when they’re scared, angry, or anxious, as well as how to spread kindness to others.

In The Sound of Silence, young Yoshio seeks to find quiet amidst the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. This
book teaches children to seek peace and calmness amidst silence. This book also introduces the concept of Japanese ma.

I Am Yoga by Susan Verde engages children’s imaginations through colourful illustrations and prose about the transformative power of yoga. Through yoga and using her imagination, a young girl transforms into a soaring eagle, a star twinkling in the night sky, a camel crossing the desert, or a boat rocking in the sea. Yoga and its healing elements is described simply so that children of all ages can understand.

Often while we lie in bed at the end of a long day, our mind races with thoughts that keep us awake. In Camelea Like a Seagull, the young girl Camelea finds that she is too excited to sleep. She replays the day’s events in her head to calm her down and fall asleep peacefully.

Books for Teens and Older Children

Each line in the autobiographical poetry book Brown Girl Dreaming acts as a glimpse into the hopeful young mind of author Jaqueline Woodson’s childhood. Woodson grew up in the racially discriminate south during 1960s. Despite the racism she frequently experiences in South Carolina, Woodson remains optimistic about the future and describes finding her literary voice and place in this world. Brown Girl Dreaming is a hopeful, lyrical, and emotionally charged read.

My Kind of Sad is a book for teens about how to deal with adolescent depression. The book speaks to teens directly rather than to their parents. Topics include reactive depression vs. clinical depression, anxiety, mental disorders, disordered eating, self-mutilation, and suicide. Along with constructive guidance from professionals and stats from the latest studies, the book shares thoughts and feelings from teens who have experienced different forms of depression.

Being a teenager can be stressful enough, but when you have ADHD sometimes life can seem overwhelming. In Mindfulness for Teens with ADHD, a clinical social worker offers advice based in neuroscience and mindfulness for teens who have troubles focusing. Skills taught include making good choices, completing tasks, increasing academic success, excelling at sports, driving safely, getting enough sleep, managing stress, and more.

Strike a Pose demystifies yoga for tweens and teens in a fresh way and steers clear of the fluff. The anatomically articulated illustrations clearly depict basic and more advanced poses, while the stay-open ring binding is perfect for hands-free posing. Girls can also pump up their practice with tips on mastering yogic flows, breathing exercises, meditation, mantras and more.

Guides for Teachers

Dancing in the Rain is intended as a guide for education leaders who are struggling with the difficult feelings (inadequacy, frustration, burnout) that surface as a result of their roles and responsibilities. It draws on mindfulness practice and Buddhist-influenced psychology to create a step-by-step process for dealing with difficult emotions. Every day, education leaders find themselves swamped in a maelstrom of pressures that add to the complex challenges of educating all students to a high level. With humor and compassion, Dancing in the Rain shows educators how to lead lives of consequence and purpose in the face of life’s inescapable downpours.

In How to Develop Growth Mindsets in the Classroom, bestselling author Mike Gershon presents you with everything you need to develop growth mindsets in your classroom. Calling on a wealth of teaching and training experience, Mike sets out the different areas of pedagogy you need to focus on, then gives you the practical strategies you can use to make change happen. With more than 200 exemplar questions and over sixty strategies, activities and techniques, this book is your go to guide for establishing, cultivating and sustaining growth mindsets in the students you teach. It’s the starting point for your growth mindsets journey.

You must embody mindfulness in order to teach it. The Mindfulness Teaching Guide offers a thorough and practical guide for mindfulness teachers and professionals, offering a systematic approach to developing the teaching methods, skills, and competencies needed to become a proficient mindfulness teacher. In this guide, you’ll learn the three essential skills of being an effective mindfulness teacher: how to guide mindfulness practice, how to explore mindful inquiry, and how to give didactic presentations. Along with teaching underlying theory, this book also offers practical options, suggestions, examples, and even reminder lists so you can swiftly put what you learn to use. The approach in this book is descriptive instead of prescriptive, offering options instead of instructions to help you develop your own style of teaching.

Teacher Resources

Health for Life Volume 1 and Volume 2 are teaching resources intended for grades 7-8 but are applicable to younger or older children. Topics include stress management, battling depression, relationships, living a healthy and balanced life, and developing plans.

Canadian Health Activities Grades 1-3 and Grades 4-6 are activity books for school-aged children. Topics include healthy habits, nutrition and physical exercise, conflict resolution, personal safety, and assessment strategies.

Also worth checking out are our bibliographies on Mindfulness and Health/Food.