The concept of the roller coaster was born as ice slides built in the 17th century in Russia. Sleds were rolled down 70 foot drops of wood covered with a thick layer of ice. 100 years later the French added wheels and eventually tracks. For our YogaKids version, all you need is fearlessness and a friend or two. No tickets to buy. Let’s roll!

The concept of the roller coaster was born as ice slides built in the 17th century in Russia. Sleds were rolled down 70 foot drops of wood covered with a thick layer of ice. 100 years later the French added wheels and eventually tracks. For our YogaKids version, all you need is fearlessness and a friend or  two. No tickets to buy. Let’s roll!

Pose Instructions

1. Sit down with legs spread wide. Put your hands around each other’s waist. Hold tight.
2. As the roller coaster climbs up the hill, lean back.
3. Lean forward as you speed downward.
4. Be brave and raise your hands as you lean right and left.
5. When you’ve had enough, unbuckle and collapse back. Rest.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

We All Win/Bridge of Diamonds
Take turns leading the roller coaster. Follow the leader and move together as one.

Math Medley
How tall is the tallest roller coaster? If measured in feet, can you convert to meters?

Pose Instructions

1. Lie on your back.
2. Bend your knees and place your feet flat on the floor, heels in close to your backside.
3. Bend your elbows and lower your arms over your head.
4. Place your palms flat on the floor beside your ears with the fingertips pointing toward your shoulders.
5. Pull your elbows toward each other.
6. Press down into your hands and feet, as you straighten your arms and legs, and lift your chest and thighs toward the sky.
7. Release down.
8. Finish up by curling into a ball and letting your body rock and roll back and forth.

Note to Parents and Teachers

This is a challenging pose. Please supervise and assist your child to come into this position easily and without force. Most young children will be unable to arch their spines like a wheel. Their pose will look more like a table.. their chest level and their 4 limbs supporting their torso like the legs of a table.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Affirmations
Make up some positive statements that will help you in this pose as well as make you feel good. Some examples of YogaKids affirmations are:

I am flexible.
My heart is open.
My spine is strong.
My brain is alert.

Body Benefits
This pose brings strength and flexibility to the spine, back, legs and arms. The more you practice, the more this pose will begin to look “wheel-like.”

Brain Balance
Whenever the head is lower than the heart, blood flow to the brain is increased. When done properly, wheel can oxygenate and wake up the brain.

Visual Vignettes/Laughing Language
Talk to your children about all the different ways that wheels make a difference in our lives. Imagine if we didn’t have cars, skateboards, skates, scooters, bicycles? Can you think of new ways to get around? Write and draw your innovative inventions.

Nutrition Tips
Most children love wagon wheels. Use whole wheat, rice or semolina pasta as a healthier alternative to refined white flour. Top it with a hearty tomato sauce filled with vegetables.

Do the wheel pose regularly to boost energy, awaken the brain and make yourself feel alert! What foods make you feel good? Which ones don’t you like very much? How do certain foods make you feel? Try this fun Food Mood activity.

Take three paper plates and have your children draw different faces:

• Make a happy face.
• Make a sad face.
• Make an angry face.

Attached their decorated plates onto the wall or the refrigerator. When your child likes a food, have him draw or write it on the happy plate. If what you are serving isn’t a favorite choice, she will choose the “sad” plate. Foods that contain a lot of sugar, artificial ingredients or too much salt can have an adverse effect on your child’s moods and feelings. Have him “post” these on the angry face plate.

This is our version of the classic pose, or asana, called Trikonasana. Tri- means three. Kona- means angle. Asana means pose. Three angles form a triangle. Can you find the triangles in this pose?

Instructions

1. Begin in Mountain pose.
2. Jump your feet and arms apart.
3. Turn your right foot so it points to the right.
4. Turn your left toes as far to the right as you can. Imagine a line from the back of your right heel straight into the middle of your left arch. Line up your feet on this imaginary line, to provide an even base for your triangle pose.
5. Press down evenly through both feet and feel strength in your legs.
6. Place your left hand on your hip as the teapot handle.
7. Bend your right arm to form the spout.
8. Release your left hand from the hip and slide it down your leg.
9. Stretch your right arm straight out to the side, as you extend and lengthen the right rib cage and the hips move left.
10. From the hip hinge, tilt the upper body sideways right, as the hips swivel more to the left. Stretch your rib cage and spine away from the opposite moving hips.
    Release your right hand down. Lift your left arm up.
11. If you feel yourself pitched too far forward, lift your right hand higher on the leg and rotate your chest skyward.
12. If it’s comfortable, turn your head and look up. If not, look forward or down.
13. To return to center, just wiggle your fingers and return to an upright position with your arms still extended out to the sides. Turn your feet so your toes point straight forward and jump back to center.
14. Breathe in and out. Jump again to practice triangle and pour tea on the opposite side.

Note to Parents and Teachers

This pose increases strength and flexibility of the feet, legs, hips and neck. It helps lengthen the spine, too. With young children, ignore the detailed directions of the feet. For children approximately 10 and older, or if they have been practicing for a while, we can begin to give them more details on structure and alignment. When they start asking questions, you will know that they are interested enough to begin to grasp the subtleties of shape and form in their poses.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Musical Musings
Sing the teapot song as you do the pose, with these variations:

Om a little teapot short and stout.
Here is my handle.
Here is my spout.
When I get all steamed up, I reach out.
Then tip me over and pour me up…

Bridge of Diamonds
Instead of beginning this classic teapot rhyme with I’m, in YogaKids we start with OM. The yogis say Om is the sound of the universe. Uni means one and verse means song. When we join together, we make beautiful music!

Math Medley
There are three different types of triangles. They are:

• Equilateral (all sides are equal)
• Isosceles (two sides are equal)
• Scalene (All sides are unequal)

See how many different triangles you can make with your legs and arms!

Do you know what animals got to fly in the first hot air balloon over 200 years ago? It was a sheep, a duck and a chicken, and they flew over France for eight minutes. How long can you fly? Where would you go?

Instructions

1. Sit on your heels and inflate your balloon.
2. Take little sips of air and pump your arms upward little by little. When you’ve sipped in as much air as you can, your balloon is filled.
3. Bring your hands over your head to show the balloon rising slowly upward.
4. Get up and fly around.
5. To land your balloon, blow out through your mouth and empty your lungs. Make noises like air escaping and collapse on the ground like an empty balloon.
6. Fall into Child’s Pose as you collapse. Rest.
7. When you’re ready, pump up your balloon again. Where will you fly this time?

Note to Parents and Teachers

For very young children, this pose is a great introduction to breathing. Our lungs fill like balloons when we breathe in (inhalation) and deflate or empty when we breathe out (exhalation). Inflate your balloons together. Time it so you fill at the same time. Fly around together in a hot air balloon dance and then deflate in a gentle heap… snuggle, giggle and wiggle together. How many times can you go up, up and away and come back down?

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

We All Win/Awesome Anatomy
Blow up real balloons. Rub them to create friction to stick to your body. Take turns passing the balloon using your different body parts: armpits, wrists, quadriceps, sacrum, and quadriceps. Say the name of the body part as you pass the balloons.

Laughing Language/Visual Vignettes
Fantasize with your child abd make up a story about where you would go in your hot air balloon. Who would you take with you? What do you see? Write the story down or draw pictures.

ABCDEFGHIJK   —  L —   MNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

What letters are to the left of the L? What letters are to the right? L is for Love. L is for Light. L is for Left. Right?

Instructions

1. Sit down.
2. Extend your legs straight ahead. Press them into the floor. Flex your feet.
3. Drop your shoulders away from your ears.
4. Place one hand alongside of you. Use that arm to keep your spine long.
5. Stretch the other hand in front of you. Make a capital L with your pointer finger and thumb. You’ll know you’ve got the left hand right if those 2 fingers look like an L.
6. Move your L-shaped body to the left. Waddle sideways on your sit bones. Steer with the L finger wheel.
7. Recite the letters of the alphabet backwards to the left of L:, K , J, etc.
8. Come back to center. Realign in L.
9. Move to the right, steering with your L finger wheel.
10. Alphabetize forward from M to Z.

Note to Parents and Teachers

Use this pose to help teach children left from right. Seeing the L shape of their hand in front of their eyes and feeling the L shape of their body will help ingrain the letter L.

For young children, L is one of the letters that gets transposed. Usually around age 5, most can recognize if the L is backwards or not. If your children aren’t sure about left and right, use L is for Left techniques to help them learn.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Laughing Language
Make up, tell or write a story about a little lizard named Leftie and a row boat named right, who could only row to the right.

Visual Vignettes
Draw all the things you can think of that begin with an L (for example, lollipops and ladders). How about those that begin with an R (for example, rabbit, radio and rooster)?

Body Benefits
This pose will keep the hips and sacro-iliac joint flexible and fluid.

Instructions

1. Jump your feet apart.
2. Stretch your arms straight out of the shoulders, palms down and fingers stretched.
3. Turn your toes toward the right.
4. Bend your right knee into a right angle.
5. Turn your torso forward.
6. Raise your arms alongside your ears. Feel the support of the earth underneath you and stretch your hands to the sky.
7. Say a few affirmations! (“I am bold!”)
8. Come up and turn your feet to the left.
9. Do the pose on the other side.

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Affirmations

• I am a bold warrior.
• My body is strong.
• My mind is strong.
• My love keeps my family strong.

Note to Parents and Teachers

The word warrior comes from the root “war”. In yoga we practice peace, so we’d like you to encourage your children to think of the qualities a warrior has besides someone who fights. Discuss with your children the characteristics that peaceful warriors possess. Some ideas are strength, tenacity, perseverance, focus, concentration, believing in yourself. Is there something that your child would like to have or achieve at the moment? It could be anything from a toy, to getting better at a sport, realizing a goal, or whatever they come up with. Explain to them about the posture, presence, mind and other characteristics of a warrior.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Math Medley
Notice the shapes that your lower body makes in the warrior poses. Which of these angles does your knee make in your Brave and Bold Warriors?

• Is it a right angle at 90 degrees?
• An obtuse angle at more than 90 degrees?
• Or an acute angle that is smaller than 90 degrees?
• Can you see and feel them as you practice?

Visual Vignettes
Draw yourself, your friends and family as warriors. Color them. Decorate them too. Put your warriors on a hangar with a string and make a mobile.

Volcanoes live inside of mountains. They are the earth’s way of releasing heat and pressure. Lava and magma burst through the crust and erupt. Use the volcano pose to let off steam in peaceful ways whenever you feel like bursting or exploding. Children enjoy making their breath very audible in this pose, so it sounds like volcanic noise.

Instructions

Begin in mountain pose. Bring the fingertips together at the chest.

1. Jump the feet apart.
2. Place your hands in the Namaste position at your heart.
3. Inhale. Watch your hands as you raise them over your head.
4. Exhale as you explode your arms outward.
5. Return to Namaste.
6. Erupt and release again and again. Have fun making exploding volcano noises!

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Behavior Management
This is an excellent pose for behavior management. Parents continuously report that children find the volcano pose very useful when they feel angry or frustrated. Encourage them to release feelings and emotions in this positive way. Practice together.

Ecological Echoes & Math Medley
1511 volcanoes have erupted in the last 10,000 years, not including tens of thousands on the sea floor. These are still considered active. Can you calculate the average number of eruptions? (Hint: Divide 10,000 by 1511.)

Laughing Language
Imagine all the things that could be inside of your volcano. Feelings, food, and toys are a few examples of what some YogaKids use. Here are some examples of what they’ve found inside their volcano:

My volcano is filled with lollipops.
My volcano is filled with lava.
My volcano is filled with kitty cats.

Make up your own volcano statements:

“My volcano is filled with _________”

Does your body ever feel like it’s been tied in knots? If so…. loosen up, untie, shake, flop, and relax.

Instructions

A. Untie the Knots
Untie your neck. Roll your head around. Untie your shoulders. Move them up, down, all around. Untie all your knotted muscles and joints from head to toe. Massage and stroke them after you’ve untied them. Untie until you feel nice and loose – like a goose or a moose without a noose!

B. Shake Like Jelly
Now shake like jelly. Shake all over. Go crazy. Jiggle, wiggle, and giggle. You know how.

C. Ragdoll Ann and Ragdoll Andy
Now that you’re untied and jellified, it’s time to hang out in a forward bend. Breathe in and feel your whole body lighten. Breathe out and fold yourself in half, bending from the hips. Do you feel like Ragdoll Ann or Andy? Loosen your neck and let your head and arms hang down. Soft and squishy just like Ann and Andy Ragdoll. To come up, place your hands on your tailbone and inch your fingers up your spine as you slowly straighten up.

Notes for Parents and Teachers

We know what it feels like to be tied up in knots. Children do too. Many times though, they can’t express how they feel without anger or lashing out. These poses are a great way to help them loosen up and relax. Talk about the differences between being all tied up and being loose as a goose. We all know which one feels better and produces those brain hormones, endorphins, which work like magic to help us feel gooooooood.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Awesome Anatomy
As you untie each muscle or joint, say its name. to find the names of most parts of your body.

Musical Musings
Put on some moving and grooving music. Untie. Shake. Flop and play Freeze and Flow – when the music stops, freeze. When the music starts again, flow.

We All Win
Twist a part of your body around a part of another person. Entwine arms, legs, toes or fingers and you see how twisted up you can get. Slowly, gently and peacefully untie. Hang forward. Hang out together.

Turtles have mobile homes. Wherever they go, their houses go, too! Their house made of bone and is called a carapace. They wear it, sleep in it, live in it and can be safe and snuggly inside of it.

Instructions

1. Sit down with your legs wide.
2. Flex your feet.
3. Place your hands on the floor.
4. Lift your knees and slide your hands under your knees, as far away from each other as possible.
5. Bend forward at the hips and lengthen your chest along the floor.
6. Rest.
7. Come in and out of your shell as you lift your head up and come back down.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Laughing Language
Sit across from each other in Turtle pose. Take turns coming in and out of your shell. Talk to each other or make sounds. Communicate in your own turtle language.

Visual Vignettes
Use walnut shells as your carapace. Pipe cleaners or toothpicks as your arms and legs. Create a turtle head. Put them all together.

Ecological Echoes
Turtles have nostrils at the top of their heads so they can breathe while most of their body is under water.

Nutrition Tips
What foods grow on trees and have hard shells that protect them like the turtle does? Yup. You got it. Nuts. There are so many types of nuts. Can you guess some of them? Yup, walnuts, pecans, pinyons, pistachios, pecans, macadamias, hazelnuts, cashews, almonds. (The peanut is actually not a nut, but a legume. Other legumes include beans and peas.)

Nuts come from trees. Nuts are a great source of protein for vegetarians. They do not contain cholesterol, but have phytosterols which which keep their oil stable during storage, and may also reduce blood cholesterol levels. Their high levels of copper may be a preventative for hardening of the arteries. Lastly they are a good source of magnesium, which most of us don’t get enough of. Magnesium has been known to lower heart disease in some populations.

So go nuts and get healthy!

Owls are known for their beauty and intelligence. Their amazing eyesight and hearing makes them great hunters too. They can’t move their eyes, but can turn their heads almost full circle.

Instructions

1. Roll up your yoga mat and turn it into a tree branch.
2. Bend your knees and perch on your branch. Find a place of balance and sit upright, or kneel.
3. Tuck your arms behind you. Hold each elbow with the opposite hand.
4. Slowly turn your head from side to side, eyes wide open. How much of what’s behind you can you see? Can you hoot?

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Body Benefits
360º Owl improves balance, posture, and flexibility in the joints, especially the hips, knees and ankles. And it’s fun to inhabit another kind of animal for a short time.

Musical Musings
Owls can flap their wings in silence and are able to hear even the tiniest of sounds in order to find their prey. If you perch quietly in this pose for at least a minute, what tiny sounds can you hear?

Laughing Language
Many owl calls sound to us like human speech: The Great Horned Owl seems to say, “Who’s awake? Me, too!” The Barred Owl says, “Who cooks for you?” What would you say if you were an owl?

Visual Vignettes
Draw a picture of yourself with wings and feathers. What would it feel like to be a bird?