Here at Rainbow Hollow we are big fans of “Living Mindfully” and wanted to share with you all some of the ideas and concepts we use to keep our rainbow family shining bright!

The word YOGA means “union” and it is important that we start to recognise ourselves not just as a sum of parts, an arm or a leg, a body or a mind, but as one holistic being. A beautiful, living, magic spark on the earth. A miracle!

What you eat, what you do and how you live all affect you in ways you might not even notice.

Imagine growing up in an environment where your family, friend and peers live mindfully in body and soul, how your concept of yourself would be different as an adult. You would choose to look after yourself and everyone around you and ultimately happiness will follow.

Caring and respecting yourself will produce a positive ripple effect on your family and your children. An effect that they’ll carry with them, to hopefully pass on to their own children.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be exploring the concepts of healthy living and our connection to the world around us. Finding fun ways to introduce a mindful start to our children’s lives.

Let’s kick off with a “Food Journey”!

We all know that a healthy diet is important, but do our children?

Food Journey

From seedling to hand!

A mindful meal time is one way to introduce healthy eating ideas! Fun concepts to help children understand why it is important to put only good things into our body.

When we sit down to a meal anytime of the day, we look at the food, smell it taste it and then talk about the process of which it has arrived on our plate and in our hands. The journey of the food gives children the knowledge and respect they need to recognise its importance. This is the essence of mindfulness!

Sometimes our food has been on such an amazing adventure to nourish us, it makes you feel so grateful that it is here in front of you. It prompts questions such as “I wonder where the farm was that this food came from”? or by examining the importance of low food miles, can help the understanding process of the journey itself.

Here is a great book about the journey of your food!

From Garden to table.

It is a well known fact that children who get an opportunity to grow there own food, watch it grow, harvest it then partake in cooking it or serving it, have a better understanding of eating healthy and wanting to eat healthy.

Having your hands under the earth, preparing the earth, getting outside and dirty can have a very grounding and calming effect on a child. Thinking only about the task at hand.

The experience of watching the seed grow into food is one that carries many benefits. The lifecycle of a seed is a beautiful thing to explore. Having planted it and helped it grow you start to develop a sense of achievement. Then harvesting and preparing the food to eat brings even more respect.

A child can experience for themselves the work and the adventure the food has been on to get to the plate in front of them giving a child a huge sense of acheivement and respect for themselves and the food they are about to eat.