A lion’s roar serves many purposes: To warn, welcome, attract and scare. With sound, lions use their language to claim territory, attract members of the opposite sex and frighten enemies. Roars can be heard 5 miles away.

Instructions

1. Sit on your heels and spread your the knees a little bit.
2. Stretch your fingers into giant lion claws. Place them at the top of the thighs.
3. Inhale. Puff up your proud lion chest with your breath.
4. Exhale with a quiet, throaty rrrroar. Stretch your tongue out towards your chin. Open the back of your throat.
5. Start with 3 quiet ones. Do 3 more ripping roars. Growl, grunt, yawn and purr too.

Remember R is for Roar. RRRRRRRRRoar. L is for Lion. LLLLLLLLion.

Note to Parents and Teachers

This pose opens the throat. It can help remedy bad breath. It is especially helpful in winter months and for colds. It pulls up phlegm, which should be spit out to help clear the body of excess mucus,

Activity Ideas for Home and Classroom

Ecological Echoes
Both boy and girl lions share the responsibilities in defending territory, hunting and raising their cubs. With their relatives, the females live in groups called prides on land that has been handed down from one generation to the next. Males form “coalitions” and try to infiltrate prides to find their brides…

Musical Musings
There are 3 different types of roars that make up the lion’s song. The prelude or beginning is generally soft, low moaning sounds. Then, it rises into a high-energy “roar” that generally goes from high to low and ends with “aaoouuu.” The finale is very staccato (short and quick) with grunts that sound like “huh, huh, huh.” *

Laughing Language
We have learned lions have many different sounds in their language.

• A is for aaoouuuu
• G is for grunt and growl
• H is for huh
• P is for Purr
• R is for Roar
• Y is for Yawn

Go through the alphabet. Can you find a sound for each letter? They might not be in lion language, but that’s OK.

This pose goes by many names in yoga. Some call it the mouse pose, others call it the rock pose. Most call it the child’s pose, because babies often sleep this way.

Instructions

1. Sit on your heels.
2. Spread your knees a little, so your belly relaxes inside of your thighs.
3. Bend at the hips and fold forward letting your shoulders drop downward, away from your ears and spine. Your arms lie back alongside your legs with open palms.
4. Place your forehead on the floor, or turn it to one side for awhile and then to the other side to gently stretch the neck.
5. Take at least five breaths on each side.
6. Press your sit bones towards your heels as you stretch your arms alongside your head, palms down.
7. This position is known as the extended child’s pose. It “extends” the spine, shoulders, arms and fingers. It’s an alternative to the traditional child’s pose.

You can stay in either of the child’s poses for as long as you want to.

Note for Parents and Teachers

Any pose in yoga where you bend the body in half at the hips is a forward bend. Child’s pose, PBJ and Ragdoll are some other favorite YogaKids pose examples for children. Forward bends are soothing, calming and quieting. Encourage your child to rest in the child’s pose if she’s feeling agitated. Gently stroke her back with a light, feathery touch to relax her even more.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Awesome Anatomy

Can you breathe into your back in the child’s pose? Can you feel your 12 ribs separating and moving as you breathe?

Body Benefits

The spine relaxes and elongates in this pose. The space between the vertebrae increases, as does the flow of blood and circulation to the brain. Its benefits are varied and great; from calming and relaxing to increasing the oxygen throughout the system.

Quiet Quests

Imagine a giant zipper from your neck to your tailbone. Let that zipper unzip slowly from top to bottom. As it unzips feel both sides of your back melt away from your spine. Breathe into your back. Let your back become so soft from your breath, that it feels like you have no bones there.

Ecological Echoes

Animals without backbones are called invertebrates. Some examples of invertebrates are worms and jellyfish. This pose might be renamed the jelly fish pose.

The stork is a symbol of good luck. Make a wish when you practice the stork, and you might just get what you ask for. This pose is one of the easier balance poses. It teaches two important skills: stillness and focus. We sometimes call this pose “crane,” even though storks and cranes are not really the same kind of bird. They are both long-necked, large members of the avian family. Storks live in both dry and wet environments, whereas cranes tend to live mostly around water. How can you tell them apart? Have you ever heard the phrase, “crane your neck”? That means “to stretch out one’s neck.” Cranes have necks that they bend, or “fold” while they’re flying and resting.

Instructions

1. Begin in mountain pose. Breathe evenly in and out.
2. Gaze at a focus friend to help you balance, as you bend your left knee and lift your left foot off the ground.
3. Keep your leg in a right angle or tuck your foot inside your knee.
4. Lift your right arm and bend it at the elbow. Relax your wrist.
5. Begin by holding the pose for 5 seconds. With patience and practice, your wobbling will wane and you will become an expert at this balancing act.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Ecological Echoes
Swamps and marshes are some of the stork’s favorite restaurants. On the menu are insects, fish, frogs, reptiles, young birds and small mammals. Do you eat some of the same foods as the stork?

Math Medley
Count the number of seconds you can hold your stork pose. Try to increase your balance for a few more seconds than last time. Soon you’ll be up to a minute, or even two or three minutes. How many seconds is that? (Hint: 60 seconds = 1 minute.)

Bridge of Diamonds
Storks are loving and nurturing parents. The legend that the stork brings the new baby arises from the fact that they take very good care of their young.

You are hot, filled with power and electricity. Sizzling! Pass it on by holding hands with your friends. Can you feel the electricity flowing through your body and between you and your companions? ZZZZAP!

Instructions

1. Sit cross-legged or in any comfortable position.
2. If you are old enough to know right and left, place the left palm up and the right hand palm-down.
3. Hold hands.
4. Close your eyes.
5. Imagine your heart. It is our power supply sending energy through our body.
6. Feel the breath move across your chest, flow down your arms and into the hands that you are holding. Do you feel heat? A tingly feeling? That’s the electricity moving through your body.
7. When you begin to feel it in your body, squeeze your friends hand. This is the signal to let each other know that a connection has been made. You have hooked up and the current is flowing.

Note to Parents and Teachers

Ask the children to tell you what is electric in their homes, schools and classrooms. Allow childlike answers for how these things work. It is important for them to express themselves through their own age-appropriate thought processes and words. Inspire and encourage their communication skills.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Laughing Language

Amps, volts and watts are three words to describe amounts of electric power or current. They are named after the scientists that “discovered” or “recognized” them.

Awesome Anatomy/Math Medley

Can you feel your heartbeat inside your chest? Your heart beats about a 100,000 times a day. How many times is that in an hour, a week, a month or a year?

Nutrition Tip (Our Electric Tongue)

All foods have different tastes. Some are salty. Some are bitter or sour. Most of us like sweet and salty the best. Experiment with the tastes of different foods. Be brave and daring and try new foods. Our taste buds enable us to taste all the varied, wonderful flavors the world’s gardens have to offer.

Bitter tastes like the vegetable kale, are mostly sensed towards the back and rear sides of the tongue. Sour tastes like lemon are mostly tasted at the sides of the tongue, at the middle and towards the front. Salty and sweet tastes are most people’s favorite taste. These are at the tip of the tongue.

Excite and surprise your tongue with new and different tastes. Delight your taste buds and body with power foods like fruits and vegetables. Feel the electricity of health run through your veins!

Crows are very intelligent animals. Like parrots, they can be trained to mimic our voices. They are known for their good memories and fascination with shiny objects. They love to play and play tricks!

Instructions

1. Begin in mountain pose with your feet wide.
2. Bend your knees and squat down.
3. Place your arms to the inside of your bent legs and press your hands with outstretched fingers into the floor.
4. Lean slightly forward. Bend your elbows outward to make a shelf for your knees.
5. Raise onto your tippy toes and place your left knee on your left “arm shelf.’
6. Then carefully place your right knee on your right “arm shelf.’

In the beginning, you may only lift one foot at a time off the floor. With patience and practice, you will balance in the crow. As you do, see if you can increase the time of this pose.

Note for Parents and Teachers

This is a difficult pose that requires strength and focus. It builds self-esteem and confidence and strengthens the arms. It even tones the organs of the belly, because the abdominal muscles automatically contract in order to maintain balance.

With children under five years old, getting up into the actual balance part of the pose is generally impossible. But, you can follow the instructions and guide them in the steps to teach them patience and determination.

Activities for Home and School

Bridge Of Diamonds
Crows, like some other kinds of birds, build their nests in communities. During the summer, they roost and flock together, hanging with their families. What do you do with your family in the summertime? YogaKids encourages family and community participation. There is much to learn when studying and observing our feathered friends.

Musical Medley
Their courtship ritual consists of dramatic flight shows, bowing, strutting and puffing of their feathers to impress their mates. Along with their bird dance, they sing a song that sounds like a rattle. Can you sing and dance in this pose?

Ecological Echoes
Crows are omnivorous. This means they eat both plants and animals. Insects, eggs, small mammals, reptiles, carrion, seeds. corn, fruits and nuts. Which of these foods do you eat?