What could be better than snowballs and yoga? We were ready to celebrate winter with our Snowga Yoga Fun for Kids! We started with some Snowflake Salutations, went sledding with our yoga mats, ate some Gingerbread Men, and amazed ourselves with our snowboarding skills. The kids loved picking out different plush snowballs with winter yoga poses written on them. We were ornaments, holiday trees, snowballs and ice skaters. Partner Yoga Poses included making icicles and snow castles. We tested our balance with a game of Blizzard in the Forest and that is not all!
Affirmations and mantras can be an important tool to help children develop positive foundations on which to grow. A positive self-belief system built in childhood will hopefully stay with a person throughout their life. While attending the National Kids Yoga Conference, I got the pleasure of meeting Erin Hurley, an elementary school guidance counselor from Virginia. Erin was also named “School Counselor of the Year” for her school district.
She is the kind of guidance counselor that any of you would love to have your children work with and learn from. Erin has a kind and creative spirit and truly cares about children. Plus she definitely understands the importance of introducing yoga and mindfulness to children so they will have these skills for life.
Erin shared with me how she uses the Kids Yoga Challenge Pose Cards when she works with students in her elementary classrooms. She has loved using these pose cards with her students as they are visual, age-appropriate, and include simple yet memorable mantras.
Each yoga pose card has a corresponding empowering mantras for success such as “I am strong” or “I am fair and equal.” This ensures that the students are not only receiving the health benefits of each pose, but also the mental and mindfulness benefits as well.
Erin shared with me one incredible activity and lesson plan that she did with her students that I wanted to pass along. This lesson could be done anytime throughout the school year, but would tie in nicely with the beginning of the school year, Thanksgiving or a kindness theme.
Mantras and Mindfulness Kids Yoga Lesson Plan
This lesson would work well with children ages 5-11.
First, brainstorm with the students about positive qualities that they see in themselves. For example being kind, honest, hardworking, caring, strong, etc. Write these qualities on the board.
Next, the students took the “hand template” and wrote qualities that described themselves. They did this by writing around the hand template.
Finally, the students were able to put the yoga poses and mantras for success together to practice and perform. This absolutely made the lesson even more memorable as it ties together so many different types of student learning such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning.
I love the the anticipation of the Black Friday frenzy. I am not one of those people that is up all night or out all day, but I enjoy the thrill of seeing what is out there and definitely snagging a good deal.
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How to Teach Yoga to Kids Using Mindfulness Picture Books:
Learn about the secret power of reading aloud to children while doing yoga poses to help give the greatest benefit to kids. As a teacher and reading specialist, I understand the importance of reading aloud to children while keeping kids mindful, active, and learning to achieve great benefits. When you read aloud to children and combine it with yoga poses, you have children that are becoming mindful, fit, and literate! In this video you will discover some of the best books to read aloud to children and learn how you can easily incorporate movement and yoga poses into these read aloud times. A full kids yoga lesson plan that you can use with kids at home or school will also accompany this video.
Benefits:
Children who are read aloud to get a head start in language and literacy. It increases their vocabulary and opportunity for comprehension practice. Combine that with yoga and you have children moving and stretching their bodies while increasing their focus and balance while having fun! When kids are moving it helps enhance their understanding and retention of what they have learned. This is called kinesthetic learning and it is perfect to use with those busy wiggly kids that need to move their bodies during or after those long school days of sitting.
Find your copy of the Brown Bear Brown Bear Kids Yoga lesson plan here.
Kids love this familiar book by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle. It’s repetitive style builds confidence with reading in ages 2-6. I love the bright vivid animal illustrations and how this book ties in perfectly to kids yoga. Learn how to teach yoga to kids with this classic read aloud.
Read this book aloud and enjoy this preschool and Kindergarten Brown Bear Kids Yoga Lesson movement and yoga lesson plan. It is perfect for home or school.
Get your free Brown Bear kids yoga lesson plan here.
Get your own copy of the classic Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? book here.
Are you interested in learning how to teach yoga to kids? This is truly our passion. We have you covered!
Option 2: Enroll in our Kids Yoga Teacher Training online course. Use You can take it anytime at your convenience. This course includes the best props, books, and resources to use with kids yoga. Learn more here.
Option 3: Take advantage of both. Entirely new content, ideas, resources, and the best practices for introducing yoga to kids.
Welcome to the Go Go Yoga for Kids Family. We are happy to have you be a part of it!
We would love to see you at the Des Moines Public Library Author Fair on Sunday, October 8 from 1-3 pm. Enjoy snacks, door prizes, and meet local authors. See here for more information. See you there!
