Instructor: Megan Lyons
Community: 2nd Grade Classroom, School Setting, 40 minutes
Plan Creation Date: December 15, 2014
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Grounding
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Belly Breathing – standing on mats, have children imagine there bodies are grounded into the floor like trees in a forest. Spread your toes and press the four corners of your feet evenly into the floor. Imagine your feet are roots of a tree, holding your firmly into the ground. Have students place hands on belly to begin breathing exercise with student leader and counter. Practice giving and receiving compliments at the end of each breathing exercise.
- Pulse Count – Take 2 fingers to side of mouth and draw line down to the groove of neck. Press gently to find pulse. Count pulse silently to self.
Activate
- Volcano Breath – stand with feet hip width apart with hands to heart. Engage your leg muscles and stand very tall and strong like a mountain. Take an inhale breath through the nose. Bring arms up over the head and exhale, bringing arms down like lava pouring out of a volcano, then hands back to heart. Repeat for 4 more breaths.
- Woodchopper – keeping your muscles tight and strong, put your hands together as though you are holding an ax. Bring arms over head, imagining a piece of wood on the ground, swing hangs down to chop the wood, making a loud “huh” sound as your ax hit the wood. Repeat 4 times
- Mountain – continue standing with feet hip width apart, pressing feet into the earth. Bring hands to heart or arms down at sides. Activate muscles, pulling them in toward your bones. stand tall and strong like a mountain
- Roots – Have children picture in their minds a large tree and its roots. Children will stand with feet hip width apart, rocking forward and back with feet firmly on the floor. Have children make rocking movements smaller, side to side, then big circles to the left. Children are grounding themselves into the earth.
- Crescent Moon – With your feet hip width apart, continue to stand tall and proud like royalty! Feel your feet rooted strongly into the ground like the mountain you will become. Bring your arms up overhead with your palms facing one another, fingers facing up. Stretch your arms up, shooting laser beams through your fingertips. Inhale and stretch your body to the right, curving into a crescent moon. Back to center and stretch to the left.
- Modified Dancer – stand with feet hip width apart, shift weight to right foot. lift left foot from behind, focus on one spot straight ahead and bring left arm up. Repeat other side.
- Strong Voice – Discuss strong voice and do Strong Voice worksheet as a group.
Calm
- Twist – Lie on back, pull knees toward chest then over to the right and all the way to the floor. Stretch arms out and look to the left. Repeat on other side.
- Relaxation – With children lying on their backs, read The Lion and the Mouse, discuss how the characters could use their strong voice in the story and when they might need it, how can they find their strong voice? What does it say?