Pizza Breath
Kids love Pizza any time of year, and this Pizza Breath is a simple way to practice deep breathing while you’re eating pizza or just pretending.
Deep Breathing
Deep breathing exercises are designed to support self-regulation, mindfulness and brain break needs.
Many times, kids can struggle at home and school with anger or frustration and they lack the coping strategies needed in those situations. They require tools to improve self-regulation. This can occur both at school and home.
Children, like adults, experience worry and anxiety, fears and can be nervous in life situations and having simple strategies on hand can help them cope during the day.
One way to do this is to use mindfulness strategies like deep breathing exercises.
Children who practice mindfulness will find it much easier to focus and actively engage in the classroom. Practicing mindfulness and breathing exercises can be very powerful for kids as they grow and navigate the world we live in. Students in the classroom who use mindfulness will bring a sense of collective calm to the space as well making the learning environment more favorable for everyone. Incorporating mindfulness can be fun !
Making deep breathing fun and combining it with Pizza can help kids practice their breath and use breathing as a way to cope or calm down.
That is where this Pizza Breath activity comes in.
Pizza Breath
How to:
- Pretend you have an imaginary slice of pizza in your hand or on a plate.
- Take a large deep breath in through your nose smelling the yummy pizza.
- As you breathe out, cool the pizza down with your breath.
- Inhale the smell of pizza as you breathe in and exhale out cooling down the pizza.
Ways to Use:
- Use the Poster as a Printable and hang it in the classroom, therapy room or at home.
- Use the deep breathing exercises as a brain break as needed to bring in some breathwork to your classroom or therapy sessions.
- Use it with real pizza! Make it an activity and have the kids breathe in an out before digging into eating pizza.
- Try this activity while making pizza with your kids. Following a recipe can be a wonderful visual motor activity, measuring out ingredients brings in some math, and kneading and mixing dough is a great fine motor strengthening activity. Try this Easy Mini Pizza Recipe by Design Eat Repeat.
Other Pizza Activities:
- There are a lot of other ways you can use Pizza as a theme for activities while still incorporating Mindfulness. I like to use visual recipes with my students. Visual recipes simplify the cooking process and help to break each step into visual clues. Students can follow along and understand the sequence of the tasks. This prompts independence and builds confidence in their functional skills and can help improve their fine motor and visual skills as well. Here is some great info on Visual Recipes by Simply Special Ed. . This Pizza Visual Recipe is a great one to use for making pizza.
- Pizza Bingo by Home School and Happiness
- Roundup of Pizza Craft Recipes by Craft Gossip.
Let me know if you used this Pizza breath and how your kids enjoyed it!
Try out some of my easy guided breathwork for kids:
