Many years ago when I was at one of my first mindfulness trainings, I was introduced the concept of visualization and knew right away that I wanted to turn it into something more concrete for my young learners. I came to the idea of having actual photos of people, places and things that make them happy as a way to bring comfort especially as we adjust to the first few weeks of school. The tradition of creating “happy place collages” has been a fundamental mindfulness practice to start my class year ever since. This year I had parents email me photos and while the students were out of the room I placed them into their go home folders. For our first social studies lesson we read a story about a little bear finding his way back to happiness after feeling sad. He mentions many people and things that make him happy and instead of having the students tell me theirs, I had them go check in their folders. They were so pleasantly surprised to find these familiar faces on the first day of school. After smiling at our family and friends,  I showed the students some examples of collages and we got to work cutting and pasting our favorite things onto a large piece of paper. Once the children left, I laminated the collages and they found them in their cubbies the next morning. We took some time to share our photos and then they moved to a pouch where they will reside all year to provide some happiness whenever needed. This will be just one part of a large repertoire of mindfulness tools we will use to regulate our emotions.