A three-part educational video series for kids (and the kids at heart)

Updated: October 24, 2025
Author: Kate Nelson

This project grew out of my work with children who sometimes have big feelings and small words to match them. I wanted to design something short, kind, and clear – something that could help kids slow down for a moment and understand what’s going on inside.

So I created three one-minute videos about mindfulness:

1. What is Mindfulness?

2. How Breathing Helps the Brain

3. Try a Mini Mindful Pause

Each video stars either Sunny, a curious little student, and Brain, her cheerful pink sidekick who’s trying its best to stay calm under pressure and teach us how to relax during overwhelming moments.

My goal was to help Grades 2-5 learners understand mindfulness through gentle storytelling, simple visuals, and calm narration. The videos were created with Canva Video Editor, using my own iPad drawings exported through Photo Booth as transparent graphics. Some Canva-provided animations and sounds helped bring the characters to life.

---

Understand

DESCRIBE THE CHALLENGE:

Children need accessible ways to understand and regulate their emotions through mindfulness – especially in everyday classroom or after-school settings.

CONTEXT AND AUDIENCE:

These videos are designed for children aged 7-11, but they’re flexible for teachers and parents to use too. Many kids this age are just beginning to name emotions like frustration, excitement, and worry.

In typical cases, learners may struggle with patience or transitions (like cleaning up or leaving recess). In extreme cases, students with anxiety, ADHD, or developmental disabilities might find emotional regulation overwhelming.

These short videos meet them halfway – using familiar rhythm of short-form media (think Youtube Shorts or TikTok) while shifting the tone to be slower, softer, and more mindful.

POV STATEMENT:

A child who feels upset or overstimulated needs a calm, friendly video guide that helps them pause, breathe, and name what’s happening inside.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

The learning goals for this series are to help Grades 2-5 learners understand mindfulness as “kind attention to the present moment,” recognize in simple terms how slow, steady breathing can calm both the body and the brain, and practice a brief mindful pause independently. Along the way, a quieter set of aims runs underneath: building emotional vocabulary, encouraging gentle self-check-ins (“how do I feel right now?”), and nudging metacognitive awareness so students can notice what helps them refocus. Each video – definition, explanation, and try-it, was designed backward from these objectives so every scene, caption, and animation supports clarity, calm, and carryover into real classroom moments.

Plan

IDEATION:

The idea for this project was first sparked during a yoga class I took, when the instructor asked us to imagine ourselves as children – too upset to explain what was wrong – and to think about how much better we might have felt if we had known how to pause and breathe through the problem. As someone who works with children every day, that moment inspired me to create a resource that helps kids understand that kind of mindful pause. From there, I began doodling – a girl sitting at her desk, which became the early base for the second video – followed by the expressive little Brain character, and later, a simplified boy version that worked better for animation. I drew inspiration from educational explainer videos and resources by Headspace, AsapScience, and Peekaboo Kidz, all of which balance playfulness with clear learning. My most promising prototypes were the boy-and-brain animations, which captured mindfulness in a warm, relatable, and gently humorous way.

STORYBOARD OR SCRIPT:

My storyboard and script were created through hand-drawn scenes designed to express calmness, emotion, and learning through gentle visuals. Each frame was drawn on my iPad and sent through the Photo Booth app to create transparent PNGs for animation in Canva, where I layered, timed, and animated the drawings to match the narration.

The second video, “How Breathing Helps the Brain,” introduces Brain and a boy sitting at his desk, feeling anxious about a test. A red alarm beside him represents the brain’s stress signal—its “alarm” going off when we feel worried or overwhelmed. When Brain appears, he explains how breathing helps calm this response, connecting the science of mindfulness to the body. Shelley Murphy’s Fostering Mindfulness (2019) was an important reference in shaping this video. Her discussion of how mindful breathing supports the brain’s emotional regulation and attention systems helped me frame this explanation in an age-appropriate way. Murphy’s work also guided the box breathing (or square breathing) sequence that follows, where Brain leads the boy—and the audience—through four counts of inhaling, holding, exhaling, and holding again. The visual cues of arrows, clocks, and breath icons were designed to mirror Murphy’s emphasis on pacing, rhythm, and embodied mindfulness.

The final video, “Try a Mini Mindful Pause,”, builds on that foundation with Sunny and Brain co-leading a short, natural breathing exercise. Unlike the structured square breathing in the previous video, this sequence focuses on steady, rhythmic breathing—encouraging children to pause, breathe, and refocus in real time.

Throughout the storyboard and scripting process, I prioritized warmth, simplicity, and emotional safety. Soft colours, friendly character designs, and gentle narration were all chosen to help children feel calm and included. My goal was not only to teach what mindfulness is, but to let viewers experience how mindful breathing can change how we feel inside.

PRINCIPLES APPLIED:

Throughout this project, I applied Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning to guide every design decision. The Modality Principle was central: I paired clear, friendly narration with visuals so children could process information through both auditory and visual channels. The Coherence Principle shaped my art style – I simplified backgrounds and used calm colours so attention stayed on Sunny and Brain (the guides).

The Segmenting Principle helped structure the series: each video lasts around one minute and focuses on a single idea: (1) What mindfulness is, (2) How breathing helps the brain, and (3) Trying a mindful pause. This ensured the learning content remained digestible and focused, reducing cognitive overload for younger viewers.

Accessibility was another key consideration. To support learners with hearing impairments – or anyone who prefers or requires text support, I included captions that matched my narration closely. This decision aligns with inclusive design practices and ensures that each video is understandable regardless of hearing ability, language background, or listening environment. My goal was to make the series equally accessible to children learning English as a second language or those who simply engage better with visual text reinforcement.

The Personalization Principle guided my tone of voice: calm, conversational, and gently playful — mirroring the way I speak with children at work. The Voice Principle was maintained through my own natural narration rather than a generated voice, to preserve warmth and authenticity.

Finally, Shelley Murphy’s Fostering Mindfulness (2019) informed both the content and pacing. Her writing on how mindful breathing supports the brain’s emotional regulation and focus helped me design scenes where children could practice what they were learning. The result is a series that blends the educational strength of multimedia learning with the emotional safety and accessibility of mindfulness practice.

PEER FEEDBACK:

The feedback I received throughout the Challenge B process was generous and encouraging, offering both practical and reflective insights that helped shape my final videos. My first round of feedback, from peers like Caelan, Emma, and Charlie, focused on my ability to connect personal experience with theory. They appreciated how I linked my own mindfulness practice to Mayer’s multimedia principles, especially pacing, narration, and visual clarity. Their comments reminded me to include more concrete examples of how those principles would appear in my own work — an idea that carried forward into my prototype.

During the prototype review stage, peers like Sai and Julia offered feedback that deepened my design thinking. They highlighted the strength of my structure and calm tone, noting how the short, themed segments reflected the Segmenting Principle and created a peaceful learning environment for children. Julia also encouraged me to bring more of my early sketches and visuals into the prototype phase — advice that influenced how I presented my progress in Substantive Post #2. Sai suggested I add clearer signalling to direct viewers’ attention, which inspired subtle design choices like motion cues and breath indicators in the final videos.

Finally, feedback on Substantive Post #2 from Therese, Tanuj, and Alexis helped me articulate how iteration connects to growth. They appreciated my reflection on design as a looping process and how I built confidence from feedback. Their encouragement to expand on revision and process led me to write more openly about my creative learning curve — including the decision to simplify my character design and clarify my audience. Overall, my peers’ comments helped me see my videos not only as creative media but as structured, educational tools that model mindfulness through both form and content.

Reflect and Refine

Note: This project was completed individually, so this reflection represents both the design process and my personal learning experience.

Looking back on this project, I’ve learned how much design is really about listening — to feedback, to your audience, and to the feeling you want the learner to leave with. When I first started, I was thinking mainly about how to make something creative and visually engaging. But as I moved through the phases of feedback and revision, I began to see how design can also be an act of care — a way to meet learners where they are, and to build calm, curiosity, and understanding through small, intentional choices.

Working independently meant that every stage of the process was mine to navigate, from developing the idea and drawing the characters to narrating, editing, and revising. It was definitely challenging at times, but it also gave me freedom to follow my instincts and make something that feels true to my voice. One of my biggest takeaways was how simplifying the visuals actually made the message stronger. The first version of my “girl at the desk” drawing was full of tiny details that looked nice but made the scene too busy to work with. When I redesigned it into the “boy at the desk” version, everything became easier to animate and more focused — it matched the calm, gentle tone I wanted children to feel.

I also drew inspiration from Shelley Murphy’s Fostering Mindfulness, which helped me better understand how breathing affects the brain and emotions. Her writing on mindful breathing guided both the structure of the second video and the inclusion of “square breathing” (or box breathing) as a simple, teachable practice. I wanted the science of the brain and the act of breathing to connect — not just as information, but as something kids could actually try for themselves. That’s why the sequence of Brain and the boy breathing together became one of my favourite parts of the whole project.

Throughout all three videos, I was also really intentional about accessibility. I made sure to include captions that matched my narration so that any viewer — whether they have a hearing impairment, prefer reading to listening, or just need quiet time — could still follow along and understand the message. Making something that felt inclusive and gentle was important to me, because mindfulness should be for everyone, regardless of how they experience the world.

As someone who hopes to teach this same age group one day, I can easily imagine using a resource like this in a classroom. I’d love to play these videos as part of a morning routine or after a tricky moment, and then talk with my students about what mindfulness means to them. Having something visual, short, and calm that we could revisit together would make those conversations feel more accessible and natural — like saying, “let’s breathe through this together” instead of just “calm down.” I think that’s what I’ve learned most from this process: mindfulness and design both work best when they invite people in, not when they tell them what to do.

If I were to keep developing the project, I’d like to explore more interactive or personalized mindfulness activities that let kids choose what works best for them. But for now, I’m really proud of how these videos turned out. They’re calm, curious, and kind — exactly the kind of energy I’d want to bring into my future classroom.

References:

ASAPScience, (video), “The Scientific Power of Meditation”, on Youtube. Written by: Rachel Salt, Gregory Brown and Mitchell Moffit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw71zanwMnY

EdTech Uvic, EDCI 337: Theories of Multimedia Learning. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2025/09/05/theories-of-multimedia-learning/

Gordon, T., & Borushok, J. (2019). Acceptance and mindfulness toolbox for children and adolescents : 75+ worksheets and activities for trauma, anxiety, depression, anger and more. PESI., http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=6260894.

Headspace, Mindfulness with Kids. https://www.headspace.com/content/topics/mindfulness-with-kids/99?origin=content_hub_home

Murphy, S. (2019). Fostering mindfulness : Building skills that students need to manage their attention, emotions, and behavior in classrooms and beyond. Pembroke Publishers, Limited.

Peekaboo Kidz, (video), “The Five Senses”, on Youtube. Written by: Peekaboo Kidz. Produced by: Rajjat A. Barjatya. Script Writer: Sreejoni Nag. https://youtu.be/q1xNuU7gaAQ?si=XPKMC1m7bX2H_awz