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Spouting Dolphin

Dolphins are mammals just like you. They have lungs and they breathe air, even though they live in the water! They also have their own language. Can you speak Dolphinese?

Instructions

Begin on all fours. Lower your elbows to the floor. Make sure that your knees are under your hips.
Clasp your elbows with the opposite fingers to keep proper spacing. Shoulders remain aligned over the elbows.
Move your lower arms forward, interlace your fingers, and make a triangle. Your hands are one point, and your elbows are the other two points. Breathe as your spine lengthens, your tailbone lifts up, your legs stretch.
Press your heels towards the floor.
Move your body forward so your chin touches down in front of your fingers.
Breathe out and lift out of the water.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Body Benefits
This pose builds agility and flexibility in the joints of the shoulders, hips, knees and ankles as well as strengthens the muscles of the arms, legs and belly. Do the dolphin and build your upper body strength.

Math Medley
As you already know, dolphins are mammals just like us and have lungs like we do. Although they need to surface for a gulp of air about every five minutes or so. Do the math: If they were to swim for one hour, how many times would they come up for air? For 5 hours? For a whole day? Month?

Musical Musings
Dolphins squeeze air back and forth between breath sacs under their blowholes. Can you make clicking sounds and patterns like a dolphin singing his watery melodies?

Nutrition Tip
Did you know there are vegetables in the sea? Guess what they’re called? Yup, you guessed it — SEA VEGETABLES! They contain many vitamins and minerals. They have more nutrients than any other food on the planet! These funny sea vegetables are very different then most of the foods we are used to. Sea vegetables balance our blood and can help us to calm down when are bodies are over-active and excited.

These sea vegetables have fun and exotic names like:

Kombu
Wakame
Kelp
Agar Agar
Hijiki

Can you say those? Now you’re speaking some Japanese.

Here are some ways to get cooking with the sea:

Add wakame to spaghetti sauce.
Use kelp or dolce instead of salt.
Bake with agar agar (instead of gelatin) as a base for custards, puddings and jello. It will thicken sauces too. (It’s also a vegetarian substitute for gelatin.)
Cook kombu with rice and beans to up the minerals in your body.

Experiment, look for recipes and talk about this new and interesting addition to menu!

Tree

by YogaKids Team

Ground yourself. Feel the earth at your feet. Spread your energy all the way through your finger branches and to the sky just like trees do.

Pose Instructions

Begin in Mountain. Imagine roots growing out of your feet, connecting to the earth.
Bend one leg and place the sole of that foot on the inside of the standing leg, anywhere between your ankle and thigh.
Bend your right knee and press your foot against the inside of your left leg. As your balance grows stronger, you will be able to raise your foot higher on your leg.
Bring your hands to your chest, palms together in Namaste position, raise your arms and stretch them out wide like the limbs of a tree. Separate your fingers and stretch those little finger branches. Balance.
Hold for as long as you can and then slowly lower your foot to the floor and change sides.

Note to Parents and Teachers

This pose fosters balance, concentration and focus when practiced regularly. Make a family or class forest in the morning or at the end of day to keep you all connected. Make your group Tree pose a sharing circle.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Reading Comes Alive with Yoga
Celebrate the strength and unity of trees with books like The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein or The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry. Go to the library with your children and find other “Tree’ titles, and develop the lifelong library habit early on.

Visual Vignettes
Draw a family tree and teach your children about their ancestors.

Ecological Echoes
Take your children on nature walks. Read under a tree about trees when the weather permits. Hug trees. Talk to trees. Balance upon their sturdy trunks and honor them with your beautiful self and the tree pose too.

Body Benefits
This pose develops strength and balance in the legs and torso. The reaching and stretching of the arms and fingers improves fine motor coordination too. Trees live on light and water and so do we. Imagine drinking water through the roots of your feet just like a tree. Water hydrates trees and our bodies too.

Nutrition Notes
Trees need lots of water. And so do YOU! The body is 75% water and needs to constantly be replenished. Dehydration can be the cause of a variety of symptoms including low energy, sugar cravings, dry and rough skin, fatigue, lack of focus and headaches. Water helps children stay alert and focused in the classroom and at home.

Learn all the YogaKids poses in our Certification Program!

Peace Pops

by YogaKids Team

Summer is such a great time for popsicles! And popsicle sticks make a great start to so many awesome crafts! This idea comes to us from one of our YogaKids Teachers, Paula Demeo. Thanks Paula!

Materials:

popsicle sticks
construction paper
drawing materials
scissors
tape
beads & string (optional)

Instructions:

Cut out two equal-sized circles from the construction paper.
Draw the peace sign on both circles. (A peace sign looks like this: )
Cut out the peace signs and tape them to both sides of a popsicle stick.
You can also create peace necklaces by punching holes in the signs and then lacing them with beads on a string.
Hold it up when you need to remind yourself (or someone else!) to take a peaceful moment.

Balloon Squeeze Balls

by YogaKids Team

About Stress

The word “stress” has many meanings. It can be a noun — emotional and physical pressure you experience. (“Homework is such a major stress!”) It can also be a verb — emotional and physical reactions in your body as a result of the pressure. (“Homework is totally stressing me out!”) Stress can also be subjective, meaning it can be good or bad depending on the person experiencing it. (Maybe you love doing homework!)

Nevertheless, when people talk about stress, they’re usually talking about negative stress. This is the bad kind — and it’s important to know how to recognize and deal with it. When you feel negative stress, you also often feel anxious, frustrated or angry. It can also show up in your body — with a stomachache or headache.

So what can you do when you’re feeling negative stress? One GREAT thing is… (surprise!) yoga. Another great thing to do is to use a stress ball — a squishy toy you can squeeze when life gets challenging.

Balloon Squeeze Balls

Create these super-cute Balloon Squeeze Balls for yourself — or for someone special!

Supplies:

Balloons
Flour
Funnel
Permanent Markers

Instructions:

Blow up the balloons, then release them — to stretch them out.
Use the funnel to fill the balloons with flour.
Tie the ends of the balloons. (Get a grown-up for help!)
Draw faces on the balloons with a permanent marker.

Chakra Butterflies

by YogaKids Team

About the Chakras

Have you heard the word “chakras” before? In yoga, the chakras are energy “centers” in the body. There are 7 chakras total and each one is has it’s own color and feeling:

Red (the Root chakra): “I am grounded.”
Orange (the Sacral chakra): “I am happy.”
Yellow (the Solar Plexus chakra) “I am strong.”
Green (the Heart chakra): “I am loving.”
Blue (the Throat chakra): “I am truthful.”
Purple (the Third Eye chakra): “I am smart.”
White (the Crown chakra): “I am whole.”

The chakras move up through you body, beginning with the your feet (the “root” chakra) and up to the top of your head (the “crown” chakra). When your chakras are “balanced,” you feel the positive feelings of each one. For example, if you’re feeling super-smart — you have a healthy, balanced Third Eye chakra.

About Butterflies

Butterflies are extraordinary creatures. They begin their lives as caterpillars and change into butterflies through a process called metamorphosis. This is why butterflies often represent change.

There are over 20,000 types of butterflies in the world. They live almost everywhere, except in Antartica and the driest of deserts. Butterflies are like birds in that they migrate to warmer weather during colder seasons. (The Monarch butterfly will travel up to 2500 miles!) A group of butterflies is a called a “flutter.” Butterflies can’t hear — but they can feel the vibrations of sound. They also vary in size, ranging from 1/2 inch to 12 inches in length. AND — and this is our favorite fun fact about butterflies — they taste their food with their FEET! Can you imagine?

Chakra Butterfly Craft

Celebrate your ever-changing energy centers with a simple Chakra Butterfly Craft!

Supplies:

Coffee filter
Spray bottle (with water)
Clothespin
Pipe cleaner
Glue

Instructions:

Color the coffee filer with the chakra colors of your choice.
Spritz the filter with water, allowing the colors to mix together.
Set the filter aside to let it dry.
Once dry, pinch the center of the filter with a clothespin to create the body of your butterfly.
Glue on pipe cleaner for the antennae.

Springtime Yoga Poses

by YogaKids Team

Springtime Yoga Poses! Spring is such a magical time… and here in the Magical Garden, we LOVE IT so much! The weather gets warmer and flowers begin to bloom. It’s a time for bunnies, butterflies, and flying kites. Join us in celebrating spring with some of our favorite YogaKids poses! Reach for the Sun Begin … Read more

Re-Defining”Yoga” for Schools: The Rise of Mindfulness in Education

by Ann Huber

At YogaKids, we speak to a lot of folks who teach children’s yoga. We also speak to lots of folks who WANT to teach children’s yoga. Some folks have self-doubt about their abilities to get up in front of a class. (To those beautiful people, we say that our program is guaranteed to bring out your best inner YogaKids Teacher.) Other folks — the ones who want to teach in schools — sometimes have trepidation about stepping on toes. We recently received a great inquiry about this…

“If I’m going to be teaching in schools, I want to be appropriate and in-line with standards [regarding religious teachings]. What is your stance on this?”

Such a thought-provoking question! From our perspective, yoga and religion are simply two different things. Nevertheless, we’ve been active in our community in addressing this topic. Mary Rountree, one of our YogaKids Teachers and Master Mentors, wrote a great article for our Press Room called “Is Yoga Religion?” As an educator in Alabama, she gets asked about this A LOT and has a number of great prepared answers.

“The Yoga Sutras, the most commonly cited text that forms the foundation for all forms of yoga, make no specific theological claims. The non-sectarian nature of this text has allowed it to remain solid for over 1500 years and allows freedom from religion, therefore making yoga a positive for anyone. The adaptability of modern yoga makes it diverse and flexible enough to be practiced with religion or with no religion. There are as many reasons why people do yoga as there are types of people that do yoga. They range from the secular, practical, body-oriented people to the most spiritual people and anything and everything in between. Yoga serves all these types because its teachings are universal.”

As you can see, it IS a great answer … if everyone is willing to listen and debate! But if that’s not the case, we also want to give a practical answer when asked about yoga and religion. Which is what we did with our new friend:

“Our program does include yoga philosophy but that is different than religion. Our recommendation? When you feel like the word ‘yoga’ is liable to spook someone – replace with ‘Mindfulness and Movement!'”

If you’ve been following trends in education, you know that Mindfulness is a big buzz word right now. It’s sweeping the nation and it’s kinda genius, really. Mindfulness can mean many things and, when combined with Movement — really does encompass so much of what yoga is… without the word “yoga.”

Now, does this undermine the word “yoga” and its depth of meaning? It’s a fair question. But our mission is so much bigger than words. Kids need our help, your help, the help of their communities. Words can sometimes get in the way.

What do you think?

I am Part of All I See (a spiritual story and meditation)

by Julie Pate

YogaKids Momma Marsha has a quote: “I am you, you are me, I am part of all I see.” This concept is such an important one to teach to today’s children because we are getting more and more disconnected due to social media, devices and video games. Yet scientists teach us that it is connection that will provide us with lasting happiness.

Dr. Emma Seppala from Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) says that when connection with others is present, it can boost mental and physical health, and even increase immunity and longevity. Connection to our family, communities and nature is vitally important for today’s children. This meditation uses story and visualization to teach kids about being connected to their peers, family, community and the world and asks them to step outside of themselves to realize the vastness of their own beauty.

A Saltwater Story

An unhappy student came to a yoga master and told her she had a very sad life and asked for a solution.The master instructed the unhappy young girl to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and drink it. The student took a big gulp and made a grimace as the salt water stung her throat.

“That is awful,” said the student.

“Right,” said the master.

The master and student took a short walk and sat down in front of a nearby lake. The master put a pinch of salt in the lake and asked the student to take a sip. The student scooped up some water and took a drink.

“How was that?” asked the master.

“Delicious,” said the student.

“You are seeing yourself as the glass of water, and are being greatly affected by everything that happens to you. You must think of yourself as the large lake” said the master. “You are expansive, you are pure light, pure love, and you are connected to everything you see.”

“I am Part of All I See” Meditation

Lie down and let your eyelids gently close. Feel the soft sensation of our own breath as your belly floats up and down… up and down. (long pause) Now bring your awareness to your heart center… imagine a beautiful emerald green color swirling around your heart. This green become brighter and more vibrant with every inhale. (long pause) Now imagine the beautiful swirling green moving out away from your heart to the edges of your body… moving in to your heart, and away from you. (pause) Now imagine that beautiful swirling moving away from you into the room… moving in and out all the way to the town. (pause) Imagine this beautiful green energy moving in to your heart and out to the entire state, growing larger and more vibrant as it travels. Now imagine this green energy that started in your little heart moving out and encompassing the entire world… moving in and out, pulsating in all directions. (pause) Feel yourself connected to all living things… Feel yourself embrace the entire world, and feel the world holding you warmly in return. (long pause) Now imagine that energy slowly coming back into your heart… swirling, and coming to a soft peaceful flow right in the center of your heart. (pause) Now again, feel the soft sensation of your own breath… feel your belly float up and down… up and down. (pause) Slowly bring your awareness back to the room… wiggle your fingers and your toes. (pause) Slowly stretch your arms overhead as you inhale, exhale through an open mouth. Leave one arm extended, bend your knees and gently roll onto one side and rest. Slowly push yourself up to sitting. Gently float your eyes open.

Pot O’ Gold Craft

by Jessica McNeil

St. Patrick’s Day is on March 17th of every year. St. Patrick’s Day is an Irish holiday honoring Ireland’s patron saint. In Irish language, it is called Lá Fhéile Pádraig, or “the Day of the Festival of Patrick,” St. Patrick’s Day celebrations are a way to celebrate Irish culture, where it is a national holiday. In fact, it is observed (celebrated) in more countries around the world than any other national festival.

Ireland is a European country, but it’s not attached to the mainland. Rather, it is an island in the North Atlantic off the coast of Great Britain. It is sometimes called “The Emerald Isle.” The cool climate and lots of moisture from the ocean air is what keeps Ireland so green.

A leprechaun is one type of fairy from Irish folklore. They are usually portrayed as mischief-making little men with red hair, wearing green hats and coats. Legend says, if you catch a leprechaun, he will have to take you to his secret pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Let’s learn about rainbows while we make our own pot o’ gold!

POT O’ GOLD CRAFT

Cotton balls
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple paint or markers
Six popsicle sticks
Glue
Black construction paper
White construction paper or cardstock
Shiny gold buttons, paper, or bells – anything that can be glued on to look like gold coins

Color one popsicle stick with each color.
Cut out a cauldron (pot) shape from the black construction paper about 4-5″ across.
Glue the popsicle sticks, color side up, to the back of the pot, so it looks like a rainbow is disappearing into it.
Cut a cloud shape out of the white paper
Glue cotton balls on top to make it look more like a cloud
Glue the cloud on top of the opposite end of the rainbow from the pot
Cut out and/or glue your gold pieces to the top of the pot

*Optional: only make the cloud and the rainbow, and stick the “pot end” of the rainbow into a bowl with gold-wrapped chocolate coins for a tasty party decoration.

About Rainbows

Rainbows are made up of six colors in the visible spectrum of light. Some people use the acronym ROY G BIV to remember the colors: Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet. Rainbows form when white sunlight enters tiny droplets of water — called water vapor — suspended in the sky, and breaks apart into all the colors that make up what we call “white.”

The area around a rainbow is brighter than the dark sky behind it because the water droplets are both refracting (bending, breaking) and reflecting (bouncing off) the light. The reflection magnifies the white light, while the refraction makes a rainbow.

You can make your own rainbow by shining white light through a prism, which is a type of crystal that bends light and breaks it apart into its separate colors.

If you want to find a rainbow in nature, you should look toward a dark, cloudy, rainy sky with the sun at your back. You will then be at the right angle to see a rainbow if one forms.

Did you know?

A rainbow is actually a full circle of light, but because of where we are on the earth, we usually only see half of it — in a bridge shape. Can you do Bridge pose and be a rainbow?

There are even “moonbows,” which are rainbows that form in the halo of light around a bright moon!

Sometimes you can find rainbows on a perfectly sunny day in the mist that comes off of garden hose sprayers and sprinklers. And of course, with your prism, which you can leave in a sunny window so there are always rainbows when the sun is shining through the glass.

Unfortunately, you can’t touch a rainbow because it is just made of light, and because the light will only be visible from the right angle, there is no end to a rainbow. So if you catch a leprechaun, it might be better to apologize and offer him a chocolate coin before you let him go, because that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is just a myth; a trick of light.

Out of the Head, Into the Heart

by Don Wenig

Early onset Alzheimers is proving to be a very different way of going through life. For Marsha and I this ever changing experience is the new normal. Everyday is a roller coaster ride. I watch Marsha going up and down, careening from side to side laughing, surprised, confused, scared, crying, and sometimes disappearing into a black tunnel that is both terrifying and sad.

Marsha Wenig, YogaKids creator and founder who has inspired so many with her insights into how children learn through yoga was diagnosed with Early-onset Alzheimers in November of 2011. In retrospect her symptoms had already been developing for many years.

The diagnosis came as the result of caring friends noticing the change in her behavior which led to extensive testing with neurologists at at Chicago’s Rush Hospitals Memory Clinic. Its impact had effected her, YogaKids and our personal relationship long before we were aware of what was really happening.

While there are many challenges that Marsha faces on a daily basis one of the greatest is being aware that she’s not able to grasp the things that were once were so easy and second nature to her. Not knowing what to do next is often crippling. Most of all Marsha misses her day to day involvement in YogaKids.

Now life and learning is truly moment to moment. For Marsha clear and detailed memories can turn in an instant to a blank screen, paralyzing disorganization and then back again to a social ease that she has always been adored for. Internally she is often as active and communicative as ever with insight and humor to share but collecting the words to express her thoughts is often impossible.

Alzheimers has led us both to a different kind of deeper awareness and appreciation of the moment. Kindness, compassion and gratitude has become our practice in a new way. Our yoga. The new mantra being “out of the head, into the heart”. Reminders to breath into and feel from the heart are posted on bathroom mirrors, the refrigerator door, by the back door. This practice helps break a tendency for fixating and obsession with troubling thoughts. If not revealing answers at least breathing into the heart (see heartmath.com) brings presence, some comfort and coherence.

Alz.org provides in-depth information about the disease with graphs, photos and illustrations of what happens to the brain in its different stages. At the same time the “best brains in medicine” don’t have much to offer in the way of explanations or the hows or why’s. This is one of Marsha’s most frequent and disturbing questions. “How did this happen?”

There are many theories as to how early forms of dementia develop. The process is thought to sometimes start decades before symptoms begin to show. A slow build up of environmental toxins, heavy metals, manufactured fluorides, electro magnetic radiation and gluten are all suspected contributors.

New drugs, sadly with unattractive side effects, are in development stages and most hopeful is an ultrasound therapy that is in the offing. Aside from the one drug Marsha takes our approach to slowing any progression is natural, dietary and lifestyle oriented.

Friends often call or Facebook with research they’ve read or stories they’ve heard about the virtues of coconut oil, DHA, vitamin D, turmeric, ashwaganda, CoQ 10, etc…we do it all. We’re gluten free, eat lots of organic, raw fruits and veggies, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, and occasionally include fish. Everyday starts with a couple of ounces of wheatgrass juice from our indoor farm followed by the Vita-mix blending up sprouts, greens, chia, maca, cacao and berries.

Googling the countries with the least occurrence of Alzheimers we found Fiji at the bottom of the list. Why? I suspect the high levels of silica in their water might be a preventative keeping the brain vital and healthy. There is no evidence that it is curative in any way but we include silica in our regimen and have explored everything from Fiji water, to horsetail, diatomaceous earth and Orgono Living Silica.

Our daily practice includes simple asana followed by breathwork, toning and meditation. It feels like the vibration of OM helps stimulate the brain. We visualize plaque and calcifications breaking up and tangles realigning. Yoni mudra also stimulates the pineal gland. All of this follows a Merkaba visualization and a lengthy heart-centerd meditation.

Marsha gets out and walks…a lot. Being outside eases and quiets her mind. Usually she’s with her best friend and sidekick Cooper our 10 year old pug. She also looks forward to weekly Access Consciousness sessions to get her ”Bars” run. Along with being totally relaxing the Bars process helps dissolve old belief “implants” which destroys and uncreates negative thinking patterns. As a practitioner I’m able to help with that at home as well.

Music also plays a big part in her day to day routine. Thanks to online resources like Pandora and Spotify it’s possible for Marsha to access the music she loves which ranges from yogic relaxation music to our daughter Dakota’s latest upbeat playlists. YouTube offers amazing binaural beats and isochronic music set to specific frequencies that promotes brainwave focus, health and wellbeing.

So what if this stage of Alzheimers can be reframed as an invitation? An invitation to explore how one can function more fully from the heart. To expand and appreciate ourselves as infinite beings. What if thinking and functioning are not localized in the brain? What if the breath is a key to enter the “tiny place in the heart” and access a more global, universal consciousness? What if it’s possible to transcend the limitations of the human brain altogether? Could this be an opportunity to remember or discover if we’re more than the limitations we’ve grown accustomed to accepting as the boundaries of reality? So what else is possible?

Marsha has learned from all of the amazing, exceptional children she’s worked with over the years that with many there’s much more happening on the inside than is apparent to others from the outside. And what if that’s ok? Is the early stage of Alzheimers a ravaging disease or a different way of viewing and being in this world? A new way of caring for and being present to each other…everything?

We’ll keep you posted.