Yoga Story Time

Let me begin my post by letting you know that I have gone to maybe a total of 6 yoga classes in my entire life.  I love yoga, it’s just that class schedules never seem to work with my schedule.  But, I had heard about yoga story time at a couple different conferences and I really wanted to try it out.  So I ordered a couple of books and a DVD and created my own yoga story time.  The books I chose to order were Teaching Yoga to Children through Story by Sydney Solis and Itsy Bitsy Yoga for Toddlers and Preschoolers by Helen Garabedian.  The DVD is called Yoga for Toddlers by Namaste Kid. 

I found that the DVD really helped by combining poses together and the books were helpful to choose some additional poses to focus on.  I geared the story time to 2 – 5 year olds and ended up with 19 kids and 15 adults for a 45 minute story time. We held the program at 2:00 and it lasted about 40 minutes.  We were able to have story time in our large meeting room which left a lot of room for everyone to spread out to do all the poses.  I did a lot of the animal poses such as a cow, cat, dog, and alligator.  I also was able to choose stories that coincided with the poses we worked on.

The format for my story time included a warm-up with deep breathing and some stretching, followed by a story called What Shall We Do with the Boo-Hoo Baby? by Cressida Cowell.  The story includes a cat, cow, and dog and we practiced these poses before the story.  After the story, we learned how to do a Sun Salutation.  We practiced these poses about 5 or 6 times and the kids really followed along with all the poses.  Then we read a story called How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers.  We then practiced some balance poses including star, shifting star pose, falling star, and finally tree pose.  Some of the poses were hard for the kids (and me) to do, but they seemed to have a great time.  Finally, we read A Girl and Her Gator by, Sean Bryan.  We then did the alligator pose and some other relaxation poses.  Finally, we did a star pose, laying on the ground with some deep breathing.  To teach the kids how to do deep breathing I gave each kid a beanie baby to lay on their belly.  They could see the beanie baby move up and down as they breathe.  For almost a minute it was completely silent except for the kids breathing – it was really cool to hear!

All of the kids and parents that came had a great time and I did too.  I’m thinking of adding the yoga story time option to the schedule between our regular story time sessions.  I like giving kids a chance to move and stretch and relax.