Hi Kate,
I have a few suggestions based on my several years of teaching yoga for preschool and elementary school students. I am by no means a yoga expert, but I love doing yoga with children and I make it very playful. I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate it regularly in my library and I'm considering adding breathing exercises and/or poses into my lessons.
- I would HIGHLY recommend starting with this card set Yoga Pretzels. I love them and I constantly come back to them.
- My students always love using the breathing ball. This is the one I have: Hoberman Sphere.
- I also have a boatload of lessons in which I use books to create a yoga flow. It isn't practical for every class, but it can be nice to use poses inspired by a plot if you do read-alouds. Here's are a few samples-0pi and I'd be happy to share more. They are not very explicit in instructions, but I can elaborate if you have questions. This one is for the Caldecott winning folktale Why Mosquitoes Buzz in Peoples' Ears: Yoga Lesson.I did a series of folktale yoga lessons at Driggs in Waterbury and the kids really remembered the stories even as weeks passed. This lesson was designed for the book In My Heart: A Book of Feelings. It's great for little ones. I laminated little feelings pictures and I ended up having students share what made them experience the feelings we read about. In My Heart Lesson
- It can work well to end a lesson with relaxation. My mother in law sews and she made little eye pillows for my students to use during relaxation. During relaxation, we usually lay down, wear the eye pillows and tune into the chime (you may have one if you do Responsive Classroom.) During relaxation I ring the chime three times to correspond to the following actions 1. make the body still, 2. think about an intention or feeling, and 3. listen carefully for the chime to stop ringing. When it stops students wiggle their fingers and slowly sit up. As a closing message, I do some sort of affirmation and ask students to repeat it. I use "Today I will be safe. Today I will be kind. Today I will be respectful" or "Be good, feel good, do good."
- I sometimes do mudras or hand actions with learners. In my favorite one, I have the children touch each finger to their thumbs (index to thumb, middle to thumb, ring to thumb, and pinky to thumb) and say something calming like 'I can calm down" to correspond to the touch. It's really nice for a calming corner.
- If you decide to use a yoga mat in any way, Five Below has nice ones for only $5.
- There are also some great books out there that use yoga. I enjoy Good Morning Yoga and Zoo Zen. The Cheshire Public Library has a great selection of yoga books if you want to check some out before purchasing.
- Last but not least, I was originally trained by Lani Rosen-Gallagher with Full of Joy Yoga out of New Haven. She does workshops for teachers and they are worth attending. Here's her website: Full of Joy Training
I hope that helps. If anyone is interested in having me demo a few book-based yoga lessons, I'd be glad to do it:)
Have a great summer!
Fondly,
Allison Loiseau