Making Storytime Mindful: A Toolkit

Authors:

• Sarah M. Smith, Museology Graduate Program
• Chair: Meena Selvakumar
• Jamie Bonnett
• Kara-Lee Ruotolo

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Abstract:

Museums have a proven track record of promoting early childhood learning. Yet, learning is not a child’s only need. Research shows that children are developing anxiety and depression at higher rates than in years past. Mindfulness, the practice of paying attention to the present moment, has the potential to meet children's wellbeing needs in addition to their learning needs. Mindfulness practice has been demonstrated to help not just learning, but also well-being. The purpose of this project is to provide children’s museum educators with an easy-to-use and flexible tool that will help them bring mindfulness into their museum space. The toolkit provides brief mindfulness practices that can be integrated into already existing programming. Given that virtually all children’s museums have storytime programming, the toolkit was designed so that the practices would integrate easily with storytime. That said, many of the practices can easily be integrated into other types of programming. The toolkit is rooted in both the psychological research around mindfulness, learning, and well-being as well as the practice of mindfulness. It was developed with the help of KidsQuest Children’s Museum educators.

Poster:

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Project Deliverable:

Making Storytime Mindful: A Toolkit

Video Presentation