Children

11 Apr 2013

Be Like a Butterfly~ Becoming Who You Are

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” ~Maya Angelou

Spring is a time of change and this week in my yoga classes, the children explored the life cycle of a butterfly. I began by reading them a Butterfly poem. Then we acted out how the little caterpillar grows inside its chrysalis and undergoes its transformation to become a beautiful butterfly. We sang their favorite Butterfly song and then played a butterfly game with feathers. The children paired up and one child would throw the feather gently in the air while the other tried to catch it carefully in the palm of their hand. They all enjoyed finding creative ways (like blowing on it) to pass the feather.

A butterfly symbolizes transformation and freedom. It represents hope for the future and stepping into a new life.

Sometimes I forget how much I have grown and what I needed to let go of to have the life I have now. As I continue to evolve into the woman I was meant to be, I am shedding old beliefs that no longer serve me, that have kept me from being “fully me”. Every day, I take more risks, I become more comfortable in my own skin and I love who I am a little bit more.

I teach yoga because I want all children to experience the freedom of the butterfly~ where they are not afraid to be who they are and to reach for their dreams.

Like a butterfly, we are always changing…until one day we emerge from our cocoon, spread our wings and FLY!

By: beyogabelove Category: Children, Creativity, Freedom, Kids Yoga, Poetry, Self Love, Spirituality, Transformation, Yoga

4 Apr 2013

Spring is in the Air!

With Spring in the air, it is the perfect time for children to explore Nature themes and poses.

This week, I introduced a Nature theme with a discussion about Spring and what happens during this season. Since children are already learning about Spring and new life as part of their school curriculum, acting out the phases of development of a butterfly or a tree or a flower helps to reinforce these concepts. April is also National Poetry Month, so I read a poem with many elements of Nature, such as trees, sun, rain, wind, etc. as a prompt for our Nature yoga poses.

Learning about life cycles helps children appreciate and have respect for the natural world and the Earth.

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There are so many Nature poses to choose from, birds, insects, animals… You can even teach them variations of many poses they already know, such as Flower. We started with our basic flower pose and then I challenged them to try balancing in Lotus Flower pose. Then we did a group Sunflower pose. We all sat in a circle with our legs stretched out and reaching for our toes in forward fold, as the sunflower was “sleeping” and as the Sun came out, we stretched our arms out and up over our heads as we breathed out.

I ended class with a Nature Meditation. The children rested in Savasana while I led them through a guided visualization which included many of the Natural elements and creatures we explored in our class.

By: beyogabelove Category: Children, Kids Yoga, Meditation, Poetry, Self Development, Spirituality, Teaching, Theme Classes, Transformation, Yoga

28 Mar 2013

Listening with Your Heart

Listening is one of the most challenging lessons that educators are faced with when teaching children.

One of the themes we explored this month in my yoga classes was LISTENING. After I introduced the theme, I asked the children to share why listening is so important and where they can listen. Many of them responded that they listen to teachers so they can learn and to their parents when they ask them to do something. We discussed how listening was a great way of helping too. Then I told them that we were going to practice our listening by reading 2 poems and asked them to “put on their listening ears”.

Poetry is such a wonderful resource for teaching.

Children are captivated by the sound of rhyming words and the singsong of your voice as you recite each verse. After reading the first poem, I asked the children to help me with the next “action poem” where I read part of the poem and we pointed to different parts of our bodies and they filled in the missing words.

This is the poem I used:

I listen mostly with my _____ (ears, point to ears)

But I sometimes listen with my _____ (eyes, point to eyes)

I look at your _____ (face, point to face)

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I listen mostly with my ______ (eyes, point to eyes)

That’s a really good place to start

But I learn a lot about you

When I listen with my ______ (heart, point to heart)

Playing listening games is a fun way to teach listening skills.

One was yoga telephone where the children sit in a circle and close their eyes. I placed a small animal puppet in one child’s hands and when they all opened their eyes, that child whispers the name of the animal to the next child and then each child whispers in the next child’s ear until it goes around the circle. Then the last child names the puppet and we all do the yoga pose together. For younger kids, we passed the puppet around the circle and the children had to listen to when the music stopped and the child with the puppet in their hand led the class in that yoga pose.

Most importantly, children learn that listening is not something they only do with their ears, but also with their eyes, their hearts, their whole beings. They understand the importance of listening to their teachers, parents, family and friends as a way to show that they care.

image credit amtbweb.org

By: beyogabelove Category: Children, Creativity, Kids Yoga, Poetry, Self Development, Teaching, Yoga

21 Mar 2013

The Light Inside-Teaching Kids About Spirituality

As a yoga teacher, part of my job is guiding my students to find their own light.

How do you teach a young child about spirituality? Children may not understand the concept of a “soul”, but they do understand the idea of a LIGHT inside or the LOVE in their heart.

Over the past few months, my yoga lessons have revolved around finding PEACE inside or how we can express the LOVE in our hearts. The children have been learning how they calm their bodies and their minds through yoga, breathing and meditation. The other day, I asked my classes if they knew why we chant OMs before yoga, and they responded “to find peace”. It’s moments like these that make me love teaching!

Children are always learning…absorbing everything they see, hear and feel.

They relate what they learn to their inner experience. Teaching a child to pay attention to their breath, tune into their feelings, and listen with their heart will help them develop a strong connection to themselves and the world around them. This builds their sense of trust in themselves and self confidence. We may think they are too young to understand but they “get it”.

The greatest lesson you can teach young children is to LISTEN to their inner voice.

It’s not often that children get to just “be” and relax. At the end of every class,they lie down in Savasana or

DO NOTHING DOLL…Nothing to think, Nothing to Do, Doing Nothing is Good for You.

While my students are resting in Savasana, with their eyes closed, I tell them a “story”, a guided visualization where they are lying on a beach or going on a cloud ride in the sky. I ask them if they can try to be so still, so quiet that they can hear the sound of their own breathing. I tell them to breathe in that calm feeling from the top of their heads to their tip toes. It may take weeks or even months before they can lie down without wiggling around or talking, but eventually they can and even enjoy it. I let them know that no matter what, they can find that quiet place inside where they can always go when they are feeling sad or upset.

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I usually end my yoga classes with a soothing song, either Kira Wiley’s Namaste Song or Snatam Kaur’s Longtime Sun. I explain that just like the sun, we each have a LIGHT inside us and to remember to let it SHINE. When I look around our circle and see their blissful faces, I know that they are IN that peaceful place, shining their light!

I leave you with this beautiful blessing. May your own light guide you on your path so that you may find your peace. Namaste.

May the longtime sun

Shine upon you

All love surround you

And the pure light within you

Guide your way on

~ Celctic Blessing

By: beyogabelove Category: Children, Inspiration, Kids Yoga, Love, Meditation, Music, Peace, Soul, Spirituality, Teaching, Yoga

19 Mar 2013

Partner Yoga Fun

This is a repost of a prior blog entry because my Partner Yoga poses have been quite popular.

Here are some great ideas here for doing Partner Yoga with kids, tweens and teens. Enjoy!!

My niece has been doing yoga with her Auntie B (me) since she was a baby and is familiar with many of the kids’s versions of the poses. Now that she is older, she has been more open to learning new poses and has even come to a yoga class with me.

The other night, my niece and I decided to do some yoga.

We set up our yoga mats in the living room and I had brought my Yoga Pretzel Deck which has lots of fun yoga activities for kids of all ages. She looked through the cards and was immediately drawn to the Partner Poses, so she pulled out the cards and we gave them a try.

Partner Yoga is FUN!

We started with Partner Warrior and then moved on to some sitting poses like See Saw and Partner Boat. We had quite a few laughs trying to lift our legs up at the same time because my niece has extraordinarily long legs for a 12 year old! We tried every single one of the partner poses, some more than once.

Our favorites were Double Downward Dog and Lizard on a Rock, where one person rests in Child’s Pose (the “Rock”) and the other (the “Lizard” lays on their back…what an amazing back stretch! And from the smile on her face, it’s easy to see how much she liked this pose.

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Lizard on a Rock

We had a hard time (and non-stop amusement) trying to get up off the floor from sitting back to back in Partner Chair, but my niece would not give up. She was determined to figure out how we could lift each other up and we almost got up, but it didn’t happen. We really enjoyed some flying poses where we lifted each other up in the air!

Wheee!

Partner yoga is such a wonderful bonding experience for children and adults alike…it involves supporting your partner, helping each other stretch and looking at each other while in the pose. It was so much fun doing yoga together and hearing the sound of my niece’s laughter!

By: beyogabelove Category: Children, Creativity, Family, Love, Partner Yoga, Relationships, Yoga

14 Mar 2013

Partner and Group Poses for Kids

A great way to teach children about working together is by doing partner poses.

Partner yoga teaches kids to work together and be gentle with each other and kids love it too! Begin with a discussion on how you can help others and then introduce how we can also help each other with our yoga poses. Select a few poses that can be done with a partner or all together as a group and then start by doing each pose alone. Some great poses to try together are TREE, FLOWER, BOAT, PRETZEL, and DOWNWARD DOG. Then pair children up with a buddy for some poses and do others together as a group. For example, when you do Tree or Flower with everyone holding hands in a circle, you can make a Forest of Tress or a Garden of Flowers together.

A garden of flowers!

Downward Dog Tunnel is a great activity to teach kids about focus, body awareness and working together. Children line up and come up into down dog together as one child goes under them through the “tunnel”. They really enjoy watching their friends as they crawl under them and waiting their turn to go through the tunnel!

Downward Dog TunnelPartner poses are not only fun but can be a great platform for teaching children the importance of getting along, working together and being mindful when interacting with one another. Doing yoga together teaches kids valuable life skills that they can use at school and at home and carry with them throughout their lives.

By: beyogabelove Category: Children, Creativity, Partner Yoga, Relationships, Self Development, Teaching, Yoga

7 Mar 2013

Teacher Thursdays- Imagination & Kids Yoga Props

Photo Credit- Embellished Minds

This is the first in my weekly Blog Feature called TEACHER THURSDAYS for Yoga Teachers of all ages or Parents who want to teach their child yoga.

The best part part about teaching children yoga is that I get to use my CREATIVITY and IMAGINATION.

Just like the children use their imagination to BE a Frog or a Lion or a Tree, I get to use my imagination to make yoga FUN for my students. There are so many amazing resources out there for kids yoga teachers, from Books to Yoga Card Decks to Games and Plush Toys. For some of my favorite resources and music, which are a staple in most of my yoga classes, you can take a look at my blog post Kids Yoga Playlist and Resources. While I have invested in many of these books, CDs and instructional tools, I have found that some of my most popular lessons have been when I used simple toys or props as a springboard for yoga poses.

Here are some fun prop ideas you can use in Class:

Finger Puppets and Stuffed Animals

Last summer I found some Animal and Sea Creature finger puppets that have become a big hit with the kids. I keep them in a bag and have each come up and pick a puppet from the bag and then we all do the yoga pose together. The children get so excited when I bring the puppets in and they have fun using their imagination to make up their own poses for some of the animal puppets, such as Giraffe or Zebra. At the end of class, I give them a few minutes to play with their puppets or put on a puppet show. They LOVE it! The puppets are fun because during our relaxation time, I place the puppet on their bellies and tell them to close their eyes and take deep breaths, feeling their bellies rise and fall as they give their puppets a ride.

Stuffed Animals are also great props for a kids yoga class and the variety of animals out there make them perfect for teaching new poses or playing yoga games. You can play a game where each child gets to pick a stuffed animal from a bag and we do they pose together OR you have each child pick their favorite stuffed animal and DO YOGA with it. The stuffed animal helps the child to keep their focus on their body while doing the pose.. For example, they can balance the stuffed animal on their head in TREE POSE or lift their stuffed animal on their belly while doing BRIDGE POSE…the possibilities are endless!

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One day while browsing through the dollar store, I saw a sticker sheet of jungle animals and another one of sea creatures. So many of the animals were poses the children were learning in my classes, so I bought several sheets to try out in my classes. All children love stickers, so when I brought them out during class, they were thrilled! Each child gets a turn to pick their favorite sticker and we practice the yoga pose together! The wide variety of stickers available makes them perfect for teaching all kinds of other poses too, such as AIRPLANE, FLOWER or SUN SALUTATIONS.

Soft Ball or Stuffed Pillow Games

Passing around a soft ball or small stuffed pillow during games or sharing time can be a fun way to help children focus. Try playing a different variation of “Hot Potato” where you play some music and keep passing the object around. When the music stops, the child who has the ball or pillow in their hands, gets to choose their favorite yoga pose to do with the class.

Imagination is such an important part of learning and letting children discover yoga through play will make it a practice they can carry with them throughout their lives because it’s FUN!

These are just some of the many ways to use CREATIVITY to design yoga classes that all your students will enjoy! Be sure to stop by next week for more teaching themes and resources.

If you have any other creative ideas to share, I would love to hear from you…

Namaste

By: beyogabelove Category: Children, Creativity, Family, Kids Yoga, Props, Teaching, Yoga

14 Feb 2013

My Valentine’s Day Wish for You

Valentine’s Day is a great idea in theory…a day when we celebrate those we LOVE. But, all the hype and focus on romantic love can leave many people feeling lonely and inferior if they don’t have someone to spend Valentine’s Day with. We are constantly bombarded by an unrealistic, idealized version of love in movies, TV, music and the media.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a hardcore romantic, the kind who writes mushy poetry when she is head over heels in love, the kind who cries listening to certain love songs or watching chick flicks when the girl finally gets the guy. Romance is a beautiful expression of LOVE, but love is so much more than that.

This month, I have been teaching the children in my class about LOVE, the kind that comes from within and how important it is to love yourself. We all need to be reminded of this every once in a while. It is so easy to get caught up in looking for love from others, trying to please them, make them love us, while not being true to ourselves.

What if this Valentine’s Day, whether you have a partner or are single, you made a commitment to really love yourself?

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This is my Valentine’s Day wish for you…

May you fall more deeply in love with yourself today and everyday for the rest of your life.

Much Love,

Betty

By: beyogabelove Category: Children, Inspiration, Love, Poetry, Relationships, Self Development, Teaching, Writing

7 Feb 2013

How Do I Love You?

One of the things I love most about teaching yoga to children is that I get to combine both my love of books AND yoga. Books are such a wonderful resource for teaching yoga to kids. Almost any story that has animals or natural elements like trees, flowers, the sun, etc. can be the perfect springboard for introducing yoga poses.

This month’s theme in my classes is LOVE and I found the perfect book to use!

How Do I Love You? by Marion Dane Bauer Each and every page provides a prompt for familiar yoga poses, as well as an opportunity for some creative movement and using their imagination to move like the characters in the story.

Here are just a few ideas for using this book to teach yoga and movement to your children or students, but feel free to use some of your own. Be creative or let your child(ren) come up with their own ideas and PLAY yoga together!

How do I love you? Let me count the ways.

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I love you as the sun loves the bright blue days. ( Sun Salutation)

I love you as the bee loves a fragrant flower. (Bumble Bee Breath and Flower Pose)

I love you as the thirsty duck loves a sudden shower. (Waddle and Quack like a Duck)

I love you as the bird loves a song to sing. (Bird Pose)

I love you as the waking bear loves the smell of spring. (Move and Roar like a Bear)

I love you as the cat loves a sunny sill. (Cat Pose)

And as the dancing snowflakes love the winter’s chill. (Dance like a Falling Snowflake)

How do I love you? Let me tell you how.

I love you as the nest loves the sturdy bough. (Tree Pose and Rest in Nest-Child’s Pose)

I love you as the sea loves the sandy shore. (Be Still as a Starfish)

And as the ancient world loved the dinosaur. (Stomp like a Dinosaur)

I love you as the wind loves its own sweet sound. (Move and Swish like the Wind)

And as our friendly Earth loves to spin around. (Spin like the Earth)

I love you as the moon loves each shining star.

I love all that you will be and everything you are.

By: beyogabelove Category: Books, Children, Creativity, Family, Teaching, Writing, Yoga

31 Jan 2013

Peace Begins Inside of Me

In honor of Martin Luther King’s birthday, we explored the theme of PEACE throughout the month of January.

Like learning, yoga is a holistic practice which integrates many philosophies and concepts beyond just asanas and meditation. Since all children have different learning styles, I wanted to expose them to various forms of art and movement that would help them understand the meaning of peace on a deeper level.

I first introduced the concept of peace through a cute, catchy song called DO YOU KNOW WHERE I FIND PEACE?

My favorite verse is:

Peace begins inside of me

inside of me, inside of me

Peace begins inside of me

that’s where Peace is found

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I used Thich Nhat Hanh’s “10 Mindful Movements” book to teach the children about the connection between breath and movement. I explained how our breath helps with our focus and balance in our yoga poses. The children really enjoyed following along with me and practicing their breathing while stretching. They also learned what it means to be mindful with their thoughts, their words and their actions. I related some of the mindful movements, such as arms reaching up (Upward Salute in Sun Salutation),arm extensions (standing Butterfly) and frog to poses they are already familiar with and they especially loved the last movement, which is a variation of Warrior Pose or Super Hero, as we call it in my class.

I read the book “Can You Say Peace?” by Karen Katz, which teaches them to say PEACE in several different languages. This colorful and beautifully illustrated book introduces different boys and girls from around the world and how they say peace. For example, in India they say Shanti and since they already chant their Oms in class, it gave me the opportunity to share that that Om Shanti means “Peace for All”.

The following week, we read a poem about Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream and discussed what it means to all get along and be equal. We also did some partner poses to reinforce the idea of being able to get along and work together. By the last week of classes, the children were more expressive about what peace means and were using phrases like “being nice to each other”, “peace and harmony” “no fighting” and “peace is in your heart”. It was amazing to see how well they were interpreting the songs, poems, books and movements to understand such a complex idea as PEACE.

We discussed how yoga and meditation (quiet time) are ways to find peace inside and during Savasana, I invited them to place their hands on their hearts and envision the peace in their hearts like a glowing white light that expands and gets brighter with each breath, as they share this peace with everyone around them and that in this way they could make the world a more peaceful place.

Today, one of the teachers commented that a parent had told her how her 3 year old son was telling her that peace was inside of him and that he had learned it in yoga class! Knowing that children are going home and sharing what they discover in my class really inspires me because this new generation of yogis will be creating peace on the the planet.

By: beyogabelove Category: Children, Inspiration, Meditation, Peace, Self Development, Spirituality, Teaching, Yoga

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