Remember all the childhood fun of a TRIP TO THE BEACH?

This week in my yoga classes, we used our imaginations to go to the beach.

I had a few songs and poses planned, but thought it would be fun to let the kids decide what THEY wanted to do at the beach. It’s amazing how many fun ideas, activities, sea creatures and more! they came up with!

First we got ready by dressing up and packing all the beach gear we needed.

We all pretended to dress up for a day at the beach…Bathing Suit, Sunglasses, a Hat, Flip Flops, and of course putting on some Sunscreen.  The children called out some of the essentials, including: Buckets and shovels, beach balls and toys, beach towels, blankets, umbrella, water and of course snacks!

We did some CHOO CHOO TRAIN BREATHING as we got on the train to the beach: “ALL ABOARD”.

When we got to the beach, we did some SUN SALUTATIONS to thank the sun for a beautiful day!

Then each child got a turn to share what they would like to do at the beach:

We swam, built sandcastles, played with our beachball, looked for seashells, flew like BUTTERFLIES and SEAGULLS, went scubadiving underwater and saw many sea creatures like SHARKS, WHALES, SEA HORSES and OCTOPUS (partner pose), crawled like CRABS, went fishing on a BOAT and caught some BIG FISH, and lots more!!

For my younger preschoolers, we sang the SONG SWIM AROUND THE SEA (to the tune of Ring Around the Rosie)

Swim around the sea, the fishies and me

splashing, splashing, we all get wet!

Then I let the children pick sea creatures for the CHORUS

SHARKS, DOLPHINS, LOBSTERS, etc, and we all did the POSES together.

We also went SURFING to a cool surfing/movement song called  RIDING THE BIG WAVES by Charity and the JAMBand:

runnin’ down to the water…
everybody’s ridin’ the big waves 

paddlin’ into the ocean… 
divin’ under the waves… 
chillin’ out, waitin’ for the set… 
paddlin’ hard, into your wave… 
standin’ up on your board 
droppin’ in and makin’ the bottom turn 
stallin’ and you’re deep in the barrel 
…WIPE OUT!

This catchy song has lots of actions, but we added some yoga poses to do on our surfboards DOWNWARD DOG and HERO!

By the end of class, the kids really were wiped out, so we did our STILL AS A STARFISH guided relaxation for SAVASANA and listened to the sounds of the ocean waves as we rested on our beach towels.

I love giving the children I teach the opportunity to generate ideas and make their own FUN in yoga class by using their creativity and enthusiasm.  The class was jam-paced with stretching, movement, play and lots of laughs!!

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