Teachers Circle Workshop at Conte West Hills Magnet School

At the end of January, I went into Conte West Hills Magnet School in New Haven, Connecticut for a Teachers Circle. What a great time I had with their incredible staff. We began the session by standing in a circle where we had fun with breathing exercises including blowing bubbles. I led a guided breathing exercise using a Hoberman sphere that expanded and contracted to pace our breath.  

We then moved into a systemic inspiration exercise where we broke up into pairs to talk about what or who inspires and supports us.  It warmed our hearts and got us ready to be creative for the next activity, an intention box.

We started the intentions box by sitting down in small groups at tables.  We listed our resources, intentions, and ways we want to be. Then we cut and pasted our drawn pictures and sentences on to little-colored boxes and added some sparkle. We put lifesavers into the boxes so that when we would take one out each day we would be reminded of our intentions.  

The staff shared their boxes at their tables and then with the whole group. Finally, the brilliant and magical people at Conte West Hills listed ways of translating this exercise for their classes. Those ideas were compiled into a master list and shared with everyone.  Yeah, Conte!!!