time: 15-20 minutes
Description: ice-breaker exercise to open up a space where students can engage with their senses, find a playful way to introduce themselves, and learn that their senses have a place in the classroom.
You need this exercise when: you want to introduce students to each other, get a sense of their attunement, and start a class with an embodied lens.
Instructions: At the beginning of a class, start a meditation or practice to arrive in the body and the classroom. Ask your students to stretch, move, or shake their body, and let them count the things they see, hear, smell, taste, and feel, right now. This exercise creates awareness for the space they are in and the tools in that very space, as much as redirects attention to the most fundamental tools they enter the space with: the senses. Ask your students to bring up the most noticeable/curious thing they sensed in the group. Tell them it’s okay if they feel a little silly or shy, that’s part of the process and welcome in the space they are in.
Curiosity/reflection exercise for yourself: every-day orientation tools: compasses and maps are everywhere
You need this exercise when: you are feeling a little lost
Time: 7 minutes of gathering data, 7 Minutes of free-writing
Look around you. What everyday tool can help you to orient yourself in time and space, the moment and/or place you are currently in, what helps you to understand/remember where you are? What do you notice? Do you move closer to a particular concept or notion of the space you are in? How does it affect your view on maps and compasses at large?
Think about these orientation devices in relation to place.
