KS2 · Physical education · Year 3
Using props to balance in meditative balances
Health and wellbeing: mindfulness and meditative balances
Learn it. Recall it. Make it stick.
IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/10
Your learning goal
I can use a beanbag to help me focus when I perform each meditative balance.
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Using props to balance in meditative balances: slides adapted from the imported teaching text; recall questions created from its keywords, learning points and common mistakes. Self-check practice, with no automatic grading or XP. Answers stay on this page and are cleared when you leave.
What you’ll learn
I can use a beanbag to help me focus when I perform each meditative balance.
Key learning points
- Move: balancing a beanbag on my body and holding a meditative balance requires being still and slow breathing.
- Move: linking our meditative balances together can help to extend our focus, combining different relaxation techniques.
- Think: whilst performing our meditative balances, we can notice how being still helps our mind and body relax.
- Feel: when linking our balances, showing self-motivation to keep practising improves our performance.
- Connect: supporting our partner if they find it difficult to balance the beanbag requires encouragement.
Words to know
- meditative
- being very calm, quiet and focused
- focus
- the concentration of attention and mental resources on a particular object, task or goal
- slow
- reducing our speed or pace when completing a task
Common mistakes
Once pupils start to link their mediative balances, they focus on creating a sequence of movements rather than the relaxation purposes of the process.
Explain that medatitive balances aren't the same as gymnastic balances and provide examples to support pupil understanding.
For parents, carers and teachers
- Remind pupils of the animal meditative balances and how animals form these shapes when they are in a relaxed state. Ask pupils to compare these to gymnastic balances and note how the focus is on deep breathing and stillness.

