We weren't sure how many kids might attend--as it turned out, there was only one, 4 year old Hunter.
He was a little shy, obviously tired, and I wondered how far we would get with the Yoga. Becky asked that the session be built around the idea of a bird's nest, so this is what I came up with:
Tadasana: feeling the earth beneath our feet.
Sun Salute: Inhaling the arms (sun) up
Rain Salute: Exhaling the arms down, wiggling fingers (rain)
Tree: Inhaling the arms up, balancing on one foot, waving our "branches" in the wind, repeat on opposite foot
Shake It Out!
Building Our Nest: Follow the leader, walking slowly, exhale one arm down to pick up "sticks" , inhale up, repeat on opposite side. Deposit "sticks" into the center of the room.
Hero Pose: exhale and rest
Child's Pose: exhale into a bird's egg-breath into the back, inhale up to see the world from a brand new perspective. What might a baby bird say? What would a baby bird see?
Hero Pose: rest, then bring hands into Namaste.
Arm Lifts: place arms (wings) out at sides, resting fingers on floor. Inhale arms up to touch backs of hands together, exhale down, repeat.
Savasana
Namaste
About 3/4 of the way through, little Hunter got "tired of yoga". So I taught him Namaste, then we lay with out feet in our "nest" in a very short Savasana. During playtime, we build another nest of toys and he hopped in to be a bird in the nest, then became very self conscious. While in Child's Pose we made animal sounds, since he told me a baby bird wouldn't say anything! In Savasana, when I saw him moving, we did bicycle legs/arms before we sat up. He liked that!
Kids Yoga is tough, because if the kids are tired, there's no way they are going to have fun. And the whole breathing thing? Well, I think it takes a long time to build up to coordination breath and pose. Doing a drop in Yoga session seems to require lots of movement, lots of change, a whole lot of fun!
Do I even remember how to have fun with kids?!?
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