Pinwheel Breathing Activity
Happy summer! What's more fun than pinwheels blowing in the wind? Well, this time we'll practice -blowing our pinwheels with our breath to increase lung capacity and learn to take deep breaths!
Materials:
square piece of paper
a ruler or straight edge
a pen or pencil
scissors
a pin
a dowel or stick
Making the Pinwheel:
1) Take your paper and measure the exact center of the paper by placing your ruler on two opposite corners across the center.
(If you have a straight edge without a ruler you can draw a line between these two corners and then the other two opposing corners to find the middle where the two lines meet.)
2) Mark the lines you have drawn approximately 1 inch from the center and then cut from each corner to the mark. Do NOT cut all the way to the center!
3) Take the corner at the top left and place it over the center point, going slightly past the center mark. Follow this with every other corner on the page. In other words, you should have a folded corner, a flat corner, a folded corner, a flat corner, a folded corner and so on.
4) Push a pin through the corners at the center point of the page. This is tricky, it's important to place the pin in the center of the page so that the pin wheel turns correctly.
5) Once the pin is pushed through the center of the pinwheel you can push the pin into the dowel. Make sure to leave a little space between the head of the pin and the dowel so the pinwheel can turn!
6) Now you're ready to practice! Take a deep, deep breath, fill your lungs all the way to your diaphragm and them powerfully blow into the pinwheel to make it turn! Continue taking long deep breaths to blow powerfully into the pinwheel. If your breaths are even and long you will feel energized and happy!
