A snake’s tongue is a radar detector. It can taste and smell, seek out friends and detect enemies. Stick out your tongue. Follow your senses. What do you sense in the air?

Pose Instructions

1. Lie on your belly. Gently squeeze your legs together. Make your body long and strong like a snake.
2. Place your hands under your shoulders.
3. Inhale. Pull your shoulders down away from your ears. Lift your chest higher and higher. Slither out of your skin and lower back.
4. Exhale as you hiss the “s” sound of the snake. Sssssss. Stick out your tongue. Flick it.
5. Rest.
6. Inhale. Snake up again.
7. Do the snake as many times as you want too.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

We All Win
Make it a partner pose by doing the Snake Charmer pose together! The snake charmer squats in front of the snake and plays the flute. The charmer charms the snake to move up and down, side to side, high, low and any ways she wants the snake to go. The snake pays close attention to the charmer. The snake  listens carefully with her tongue and follows directions with the eyes and body. The charmer guides the  snake back onto the belly. Be sure to have the children take turns in each role!

Ecological Ethics
The mysterious and exotic ways of snake charmers throughout Asia have fascinated imaginations for centuries. To work with a cobra, they remove their poison glands so their bites become harmless. Is it OK to rob the cobra of its venom which is necessary for survival in order to put him in charm school? What do you think?

Mommy and Me
With infants and toddlers, let them lie on your back to have some herpetologic fun. (Herpetology is the study of snakes and other reptiles).They’ll giggle and enjoy the snake ride as you lift your spine up and down, side to side with them lying on your spine. Slither across the floor with them holding onto your shoulders then coil around them and cuddle to finish your serpentine sojourn.

Body Benefits
Practicing this pose will keep the spine and lower back flexible. Doing it the YogaKids way also exercises the tongue and opens the throat. When your snake is charmed, he is learning to follow non-verbal directions and enhance eye/brain/body coordination. Now that’s a sssspecial ssskill.

Ecological Echoes
Snakes have poor hearing. They don’t have outer ears like we do, but their inner ear is well tuned. Their slithering movements on the earth help them ‘hear’ through the ground. They are sensitive to vibrations of which most people are completely unaware.

Laughing Language
Make up tongue twisters. Use an “s” location in each one, anything from Saturn to supermarkets to Singapore. How many “s” places can you name? Here’s a few to get you started: “Super snails shovel slowly seeking Spain.”

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?

Peace is a powerful word that has many meanings – love, kindness, quiet, sharing, happy, smiling, gentleness. The peace breath is an easy way to help us feel peace. When you are peaceful, you will help everyone around you be peaceful too.

Instructions

1. Close your eyes. Relax your face. Let your skin drape down over your bones like a soft blanket.
2. Breathe in. Breathe out and whisper the word “peace.”
3. Do this 3-6 times. As you exhale and say the word “peace.”

Feel the peace within you. Feel the peace around you. Send peace to the animals, trees and plants. Send peace to your family. Send peace to countries in the world that are having wars. Send peace to all the people you love. You are peace.

Activity Ideas for Home and Classroom

Visual Vignettes
What does peace look like? Draw a picture of your peaceful family. Make peace signs and hang them around your house to remind each other to choose peace instead of yelling or shouting.

We All Win
Make up a peace game for you and your friends where everyone is a winner.

Awesome Anatomy
Go through your body parts and organs from head to toes and send each one peace. When you have a tummy ache send peace to your tummy. A headache-send peace to your brain.

Laughing Language
Peace is defined as a state of quiet, calm, tranquility, freedom from war, harmony. Here are a few ways to say it in different languages:

• Egyptian: Hetep
• Greek: Irini
• Italian: Pace
• Japanese: Heiwa
• Swedish: Fred
• Vietnamese: Su Thai Binh
• Zulu: Ukuthula

Affirmations

I am peace.
I am kind.
I help others.
Peace begins within me.

Oxygen is brain food, so the more you practice this breath, the smarter you’ll be! Your ducky will love the ride on your belly as she surfs on the waves of your breath.

Instructions

1. Lie down on your back.
2. Place a rubber ducky or a stuffed animal on your belly.
3. Breathe gently in (your belly rises) and out (belly sinks down). Gently rock your ducky to sleep on your tummy.

Note for Parents

Swim Ducky Swim is a great bedtime technique. Place a stuffed animal on your child´s belly and read them a bedtime story that is about that animal. For example, if your child loves the Berenstein Bears, let her pick out her favorite bear to breathe with and read her one of their stories. If one of the If you Give a Moose… books is what he picks, he’ll choose that animal. Making bedtime a relaxed and nurturing time will serve you and your child well.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Awesome Anatomy

Air comes into our bodies through our nose and mouth, travels down the trachea or windpipe, through the bronchial tubes and into our lungs. Trace the air´s path with your fingers as it moves from your nose all the way through your chest.

Body Benefits

This technique helps children understand how to breathe completely using diaphragmatic, or belly, breathing. The diaphragm is a muscle just below the lungs. It moves like an elevator — up and down.

Math Medley

Play a counting and guessing game with your child. Each night before bedtime, have him pick the number of breaths he thinks it is going to take for him to fall asleep. Advise him in the morning what the number really was. Is it greater than or less than what he predicted?

Instructions

1. Begin on all fours. Line up your wrists under your shoulders.
2. Spread your fingers wide and arch your spine to the sky.
3. Loosen your neck and drop your head down.
4. Breathe out long and “catlike” as your meow. If you have a pet cat you might already know this combination of poses!
5. Now lift your chest forward and look up with big “cow eyes.”
6. Dip your belly down and tilt your sit bones (your ischium) up. Your back will sink down like a cow’s.
7. Make cow lips and moo deeply from the back of your throat. Moooooo.
8. Go back and forth, meowing and mooing. Begin with four rounds, and increase to as many times as feels good to you.

Notes for Parents and Teachers

This combination can be done sitting too. Your child can sit at the edge of a chair, hands resting on the knees, and move the spine back and forth.

Activity Ideas for the Home or Classroom

Math Medley
The arched cat back is a convex curve; that is, it curves outward instead of inward. The cow spine is concave, which means it curves inward. A scoop of ice cream is convex, but the inside of a cone is concave. Help your child find convex and concave objects.

Visual Vignettes
In addition to the math activity, have your children draw different convex and concave objects. Some convex shapes include baseball caps, camels, domes of buildings. Some concave shapes include skating ramps, bowls, funnels. Can you think of more? Draw and label these items.

Awesome Anatomy
The bones that make up the spine are called vertebrae. Humans have 26 vertebrae, while cats and cows have about 52. This pose keeps your spine flexible.

Lizards are cousins of dinosaurs and belong to the reptile family. There are thousands of different types of lizards living in all kinds of environments, from rain forests to deserts. The only places lizards don’t like are very, very cold places. Lizards are amazing! Geckos have special toes that allow them to grip and climb surfaces that are too smooth for most other creatures – like glass. Chameleons have built-in camouflage and change color to match their surroundings. Some lizards can swim, some can drop their tails when attacked and grow new ones, and horny toads are covered in spines and shoot blood from their eyes! The smallest lizards are chameleons from Madagascar that are only a few tens-of-millimeters in length, and the biggest ones are the poisonous Komodo dragons of Indonesia, which can reach 10 feet and 150 pounds.

Instructions

1. Lie down on your belly. Place your hands under your shoulders.
2. Spread your fingers out like lizard claws. Bend your lizard toes forward.
3. Push up until your arms and legs are straight. Draw your shoulders back and away from your ears.
4. Walk like a lizard, slowly and carefully. Flick your tongue in and out as you check for danger and maybe catch a bug for a snack. Your scales protect you and will keep you strong and fearless.

Note to Parents and Teachers

Lizard can be practiced in a stationary position, although children like to have lizard races too. If you need them to do something, like a chore or a task, send them off in lizard pose to complete their mission. If grinding the teeth or suffering from TMJ affects you or your child, practicing lizard tongue will help. Flick and loosen the tongue to unlock and relax the jaw.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Laughing Language
Make a lizard tongue twister with the letter L, such as “Long lizards lie lollygagging. . .”

We All Win
Take a lizard walk with a partner while you trade tongue-twisters.

Math Medley
How far can you walk as a lizard? Count the steps or measure the distance in feet and inches.

Awesome Anatomy
Clenching the jaw, sends signals of tightness to the brain via the sensory nerves. The motor nerves then communicate that sense back to the body. Practicing lizard tongue, relaxes the jaw, and alleviates tension.

Dogs have been our best friends for over 12,000 years. They frequently roam in packs, just like many kids do!

Instructions

1. Begin on your hands and knees in all fours.
2. Bend your toes forward.
3. Spread your fingers wide.
4. Press your doggy paws and heels downward, as you lift your hips and tail to the sky.
5. Lengthen your spine. Stretch your arms and legs as long as possible.
6. Release your neck and head down.
7. Growl, yawn, bark and make other doggy sounds!

Mark Your Territory!
Bend your knee and rotate your belly and chest upward. Raise one leg up and ‘mark your territory’ just like dogs do. Keep your hands pressing downward and your arms straight. Dogs leave their scent so other animals know they´ve been there. Lift your opposite leg too.

Note to Parents and Teachers

Take turns walking the dog. Children love to “walk their parents” and give them instructions too. This role reversal is very empowering and fun for the kids. Grab a hold of the back of their shirt like you´re holding a leash. Lead them around. Give them directions; slower, faster, turn around, sit, stay, roll over. Let your doggy rest after the walk. Have her lie on her back with her arms and legs in the air. Scratch her behind her ears. Scratch her belly too. Give her a bone and a kiss on her nose before she rolls over and stretches back into Down Diggety Doggy Down.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Body Benefits
This pose strengthens the legs and arms as well as relieves stiffness in the shoulders. With regular practice, Down Dog can also help correct curvature of the spine such as scoliosis.

Math Medley/Musical Musings/We All Win
Play the Canine Calling game. One child creates a pattern of growls, barks and other doglike sounds. The other child repeats it, and adds more sounds. Go back and forth. Have fun with your whole family.

Awesome Anatomy
This pose works the muscles of the legs; ankles, calves and hamstrings. Share the names of all the body parts this pose can benefit!

Character Education
Dogs that are treated well have great loyalty to their owners. What does it mean to be loyal? What are some of the ways children can take care of their dogs? Grooming, feeding, loving…..what else can you do to keep your pet safe and happy?

Instructions

1. Stand back to back with a partner.
2. Both partners take one “baby step” forward.
3. Reach back and take hold of each other’s hands or wrists.
4. Keep your feet rooted to the floor and lean gently away from each other until you both feel a nice stretch opening your shoulders and chest.
5. Come back to center, release your hands, and fold forward.
6. Hang your body loose, then slowly roll up.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Science
Analyze the physics of this pose. What would happen if either partner let go of the other’s hands? Why does this pose work best with partners of approximately equal weight?

Art
Discuss the concept of symmetry in this pose and in works of art. Then ask your students to create symmetrical art of their own.

Body Benefits
Opens the shoulders, builds arm strength, and engages the core muscles. Builds coopertaions, trust and balance.

Instructions

1. Sit with your legs wide apart in a triangle position.
2. Flex your heels and bend your toes toward you.
3. The person with the smaller triangle should press both heels into the other person’s inner ankles. Keep your sit bones planted in the earth.
4. Reach your arms straight to your partner and take hold of each other’s wrists or hands.
5. One partner bends forward at the hip hinge, while the other leans back. The person leaning back gently guides the other into a satisfying forward bend.
6. After a few breaths, switch the person being pulled forward and the person leaning back. Gently rock each other back and forth.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Math Medley
Use the See Saw motion to help students master their multiplication tables. For example, you ask “2 X 2 equals?” Students rock and answer, “4.” You ask, “2 X 3 equals?” Students rock and answer in unison.

Musical Musings
As your students rock and forth in this pose, sing songs together. Rock to the beat. Younger children can sing nursery rhymes while older students can rock to, well… rock!

Body Benefits
The See Saw is a fun way to stretch the groin and hamstrings, open the hips, and strengthen the abdominal muscles.

Instructions

1. Lie on your back, arms at your sides.
2. Bring the bottoms of your feet together and open your knees outward to make a fish tale.
3. Press your feet together and flap your legs up and down.
4. Slide your hands, palms down, underneath your backside.
5. Squeeze your shoulders together, press into your elbows and lower arms, and arch your back as your chest lifts off the floor.
6. Place the top of your head on the floor.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Ecological Echoes
Imagine you have gills instead of lungs. Fish breathe by taking water in through their mouths and pushing it out through their gills. Feel your gills open and close you breathe. Make fish lips and blow bubbles!

Body Benefits
With the head upside-down, the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain increases, making this pose simultaneously energizing and calming

You are a graceful swan, sailing from side to side as you move smoothly through the water.

Instructions

1. Begin All-Fours pose.
2. Bend your lower legs, point your toes to the sky and glide your body forward.
3. Lift your chest and lengthen your graceful neck.
4. Drop your shoulders and keep your arms strong. Y
5. Breathe in and out.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Affirmations
Play with the following affirmations while doing this pose:

• “I am graceful as a swan.”
• “I sail with ease through hard times.”
• “I am gentle and beautiful.”

Musical Musings
Play Tchaikowvsky’s Swan Lake while moving around as swans.

Body Benefits
Practicing Swan pose keeps the spine and lower back flexible. and increases upper body strength. It can help to lengthen the neck, improve posture and broaden the chest to help counteract slumping.

Instructions

1. Close your eyes and picture a balloon in your lap slowly growing bigger, as you breathe in through your nose.
2. Picture it getting smaller as you breathe out through your nose and release all your tummy air. Breathe in, fill your balloon, and let your arms rise away from you to encircle the balloon.
3. Now gently press your balloon flat, letting your arms come back in towards your belly.
4. Repeat several times.

Note for Parents

This pose can be done at a desk or sitting on the floor.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Awesome Anatomy
Give each student a balloon to inflate. Let them blow it up and then let the air flow back out, observing the shape of the balloon. The balloon shrinks because of the elasticity of the material. Students can learn that their lungs are also elastic: they inflate with an inhalation and will deflate on their own, with no muscular effort. Students will also be interested to learn that the lungs do not have muscles at all; we inhale by expanding the ribs and/or flattening the diaphragm muscle. The lungs are held against the inside of the chest wall by a vacuum.

Body Benefits

Breathing deeply and fully with Balloon Breath brings more oxygen into our blood stream to make us more alert and focused.

Math Medley

Play with a 2 to 1 ratio as a pattern to increase your breathing capacity. For example, breathe in for 2 counts, and breathe out for 4 counts. Gradually let your breath and number power expand.

This pose can be done anywhere, at any time. Squat down on your heels, like a frog – place your palms flat on the ground. We’re also going to make frog noises. Do you know that some frogs expand their necks to amazing sizes when they breathe in and out? Imagine your chest is a frog’s throat and expand it out as big as you can….ribbbiiiit!

Instructions

1. Stand tall, with your feet hip-width apart.
2. Pivot your feet outward, so that your toes are wider than your heels.
3. Bend your knees until you are squatting. Try to keep your heels on the floor.
4. Bring your palms together at your heart.
5. Stay here for several breaths.
6. Be sure to ribbit like a frog!

Activity Ideas for Home and Classroom

Ecological Echoes
Did you know? Frogs don’t drink water — they absorb it through their skin. They also completely shed their skin about once a week. After it pulls off the old, dead skin, the frog usually eats it.

Body Benefits
This pose opens your hips and stretches your groin.

Affirmations
Try these affirmations as you do the pose: “I feel grounded” and “I feel balanced and strong.”

Instructions

1. Lie on your back, arms at your sides.
2. Bend both knees and place your feet flat on the floor hip-width apart.
3. Press the feet into the floor, inhale and lift the hips up, rolling the spine off the floor.
4. Press down into the arms and shoulders to lift the chest up.
5. Breathe and hold for several breaths.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Ecological Echoes
There are many different bridge types. And the type that is build depends on the the terrain underneath. The first bridges were made of logs — but not can be made of oncrete, metal, and other materials. Which bridges have you visited?

Math Medley
The world’s longest bridge is the Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge in China. The bridge, which opened in June 2011, spans 102.4 miles. How many feet is that?

Instructions

1. Sit with your legs wide apart in a triangle position.
2. Flex your heels and bend your toes toward you.The person with the smaller triangle should press her heels into her partner’s ankles.
3. Reach across with your right hands and shake hands or wrists.
4. Lift your left arm up above your head and over and as you stretch this entire side, shoulder, arms and fingertip. Keep your sit bones on the floor.
5. Lean over. Look up. Smile and breath in and out.
   Change sides.

Help each other to obtain the best feelings in your body by helping each other in this wonderful stretch and find your edge (the place where it feels just right without too much trying).

Note to Parents and Teachers

Partner yoga poses are great ways to help children learn about cooperation, have fun and get fit too.

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Musical Musings
Sing age appropriate songs or ditties as you connect and stretch. Have fun using reciting nursery rhymes, pop songs, knock, knock jokes or any call and response songs. Tell some really funny jokes or stories to each other and have a rib splitting laugh together.

Awesome Anatomy/Body Benefits
Feel the bones in your chest. They are called your ribs. When you practice this pose you create space between your ribs and this helps your breath become deeper, fuller and stronger. This rib splitting pose stretches your legs, hips, waist shoulders and fingers too. Remember to press through your sit bones. The fancy name for them is ischial tuberosities. Can you say that? How about Ischium? That one is a little easier.

Math Medley
Draw a circle or a square. How many triangles can you put inside of each of these forms? 2, 3, 8, 10? Have fun counting and color them too.

Nutrition Tip – Triangle Foods
What is one of most children’s favorite foods that is served in the shape of a triangle or a circle? Yup. Yum. Pizza. Instead of buying pizzas, make healthy ones together. Use whole grain dough, bagels, English muffins or tortillas. Use organic tomato sauce, lowfat or soy cheese and lots of veggies. Make funny faces with colorful strips of peppers, cherry tomato eyes, pineapple slices and other goodies.

Tyropitakia (pronounced tee-ro-pee-TAHK-yah) means “cheese pie triangles.” These tasty triangular cheese-filled pastries are fun finger foods for kids. Let young cooks try their hand at this. Once they get the hang of the folding, there will be no stopping them!

Monkeys love to pick bugs and little eggs out of their friends’ fur and eat them. It’s called nit picking. Their arm-spread is longer than the length of their whole body. They easily arm-walk through the trees. They also knuckle-walk on the forest floor.

Instructions

1. Bend your knees and squat down on your feet. Walk around. Lead with your long arms and jump with your bent legs. On a soft surface, try ‘knuckle walking.’
2. Check each other for bugs and nits. Pick them out and pretend to eat them.
3. Make monkey sounds. Roll your lips away. Bare your teeth. Breathe with a “he he he” sound.
4. Make monkey lips and breathe with a “who, who, who sound.” Go back and forth.

You’ve cleaned each other up and fed yourselves too. Good monkeys! Reward yourself with a banana!

Activity Ideas for Home or Classroom

Bridge of Diamonds
Cooperation and taking care of one another is a good idea for all living things.

Math Medley
You picked ___ nits. Your friend picked ___. How many nits did you pick together?

Musical Musings
Sing to the melody of Five Little Monkeys.

“Bug pickin chimps went swinging through the trees.

They laughed and sang and breathed hee-hee.

Cleaned their fur til their coats were nit-free

Then shared big bananas for all to see.”

Have you ever rowed a boat? If not, give it a try right now! Rowing takes strength and coordination. You use your tummy, back, arm and shoulder muscles. Your body works hard, yet the oars just dip gently in the water without making too many waves. Put on your life jacket and get ready for a ride!

Instructions

1. Begin in an L position. Place both hands alongside of your hips. Press them to the floor. Lengthen the arms and spine.
2. Lean back. Lift your legs upward. Balance on your sit bones. Extend your arms forward. Palms face each other. Breathe strongly.
3. Row your arms forward. Sing a verse of Row Your Boat.
4. Row backwards. Repeat the verse.
5. To rest, separate the legs slightly. Bend forward at the hips. Take a few deep breaths to renew. Can you row your boat forward and back 2 more times?

Note to Parents and Teachers

In the beginning, the back and stomach muscles might feel very weak. Over time, rowing your boat will strengthen the stomach and back muscles, as well as tone the organs of the intestines, kidneys and liver. You will notice when you sing and row, you can actually be in the pose longer than when you stay stationary without singing.

Activity Ideas for Home and Classroom

Musical Musings
Sing Row Your Boat. Do as many verses as you can while your practice the pose. If there are 2 or more rowers, come in at different intervals.

Here are the lyrics:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.

If you know this song in other languages, sing it.

Visual Vignettes
Make boats with origami paper. Place them on your tummy as you row. You can use a toy boat too.

We All Win/Laughing Language
Sit next to one another. Hold hands. Row together in unison. Synchronize your breath. Go on a boating adventure. Take turns leading the travels.

For example:
We’re in Alaska. The waters are very cold. The waves are big. Our boat is strong and we have life jackets. We see seals and polar bears and whales.