Mindfulness for Preschool and Kindergarten: The OpenMind Program to Boost Social Emotional Learning and Classroom Engagement

A powerful SEL mindfulness program to help kids self-regulate, foster social and academic engagement, and bring peace back into the classroom.

As a teacher, you know that preschool and kindergarten are difficult periods of transition in kids’ lives. This is true now more than ever, as young children in our world face increasing life challenges—including adverse childhood experiences, trauma, social disconnection, systematic discrimination, and a global pandemic. Students are struggling to balance their emotions and adapt to a classroom environment, the tools outlined in this mindfulness guide can help.

Mindfulness for Preschool and Kindergarten offers an effective, adaptable, multisensory, and skills-based social emotional learning (SEL) program to help preschool and kindergarten-aged children learn to self-regulate, ensuring a peaceful and prosocial learning environment in the classroom. The hands-on OpenMind program in this book will help kids cope with stress and trauma, process and understand difficult emotions, and interact positively with others. Kids will also learn how to bounce back from challenges, build resilience, and experience greater social and academic engagement.

The OpenMind program’s five foundations go well beyond sequenced lesson plans and strategies to help promote a positive classroom experience. These include:

• Wellness and mindfulness training for teachers
• Practices to help kids build self-regulation, executive function, and engagement
• Planned practices and lessons in response to arising individual and learning environment needs that are anchored to social and academic content
• Scaffolding and modification of practices and lessons to promote learning and active mindful engagement
• A process for transforming challenging behaviors into opportunities for learning, growth, autonomy, and agency

You are on the frontlines of helping kids face some of life’s most difficult challenges, and ensuring that they feel valued, protected, and supported. The weight of this responsibility can create stress and feelings of overwhelm for you. Let this guide support both you and your young students in cultivating a loving, safe, and rewarding classroom environment—together.

Monica Moore Jackman, OTD, MHS, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist, and owner of Little Lotus Therapy. She has a doctorate in occupational therapy from Chatham University, and undergraduate and master of health sciences degrees from the University of Florida. Monica has authored book chapters and research papers on mindful engagement, the mindful engagement support model, and mindfulness interventions, and has developed and implemented mindfulness-based training programs for adults, caregivers, preschoolers, and school-aged children. As an occupational therapist, she is dedicated to making mindfulness-based interventions inclusive and accessible to all learners, and supporting people to experience meaning, connection, and engagement in life. She has presented nationally and internationally on mindfulness-based programs and interventions. She has practiced for over twenty years in a variety of clinical settings, and served as an expert consultant to the Department of Justice for cases under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act. Finally, she is a mother of four who uses these practices with her own family.

Foreword writer Nirbhay N. Singh, PhD, BCBA-D, is clinical professor of psychiatry and health behavior at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, a certified behavior analyst, and developer of the Mindfulness-Based Positive Behavior Support (MBPBS) and Soles of the Feet programs. His research focuses on assistive technology, health and wellness interventions, and mindfulness-based programs across the life span that reduce suffering and enhance quality of life. He is editor in chief of Mindfulness and Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders.