Spring Into Yoga

Activity Overview

Yoga is one way to bring a holistic sense of wellness to body and mind, and learning yoga as a young child helps one’s connection with their growing body. Finding balance, strengthening core muscles, and thinking about how your body moves are all important parts of gaining stronger gross motor skills and deepening our connection to our vestibular and proprioceptive systems. Additionally, yoga is a comforting, calming, and relaxing experience. Thinking about your own emotions and feelings at an early age is important and yoga provides students with a moment to be meditative. Consider doing this activity on a sunny spring day or on a day that you just wish the weather would change.

What You Need

• I Am Yoga by Susan Verde on Epic

• Spring Yoga poster

• A device to take photos with

Steps

1. Read I Am Yoga by Susan Verde with your student and discuss how yoga can keep our bodies healthy.

2. Take a nature walk to the park or playground to see, hear, smell, and touch the environment in nature. Ask students what they notice about the outdoor environment.

3. Introduce students to yoga poses on the Spring Yoga poster.

4. Describe the poses and what they symbolize from the springtime.

5. Teach students spring yoga poses. Practice the poses together.

Guiding Questions

• What are some ways you keep your body healthy?

• What do you know about yoga? Show me!

• What are some things you saw during your nature walk?

• Have children show their representation of the pose before they learn it, “How do you think we can make the sun...tree….rain?”

Extensions

• Make up your own original yoga poses.

• Create a digital or physical photo collage - organize them in a document online or print out the photos of your student practicing the yoga poses and glue them together on a large sheet of paper.