Instructor: Tiffany Chapman
Community: Ages 4-5, School Setting, 30 minutes
Plan Creation Date: January 20, 2016
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Community
Additional Theme: “Gingerbread Men from Outer Space.”
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Intro – Ground rules quickly.
- Theme – Tell students that today’s theme is community. Ask, “What is a community?” “Who can name different types of communities?”
Have them guess what things they are going to pretend to be a community of. Hint: It is something you make and eat around Christmas time. Answer: Gingerbread men! - Belly Breathing – Hoberman Sphere + compliments. Have them imagine that the sphere is the dough rising and falling. Have them pretend that there is a big ball of dough inside of their lungs doing the same thing.
- Child’s Pose – with partners – Have students take turns “kneading” each other as they are rolled up into dough-balls. Make sure to set boundaries: gentle hands only please, tell your partner if you are needing space.
Activate
- Mat 20 – flow abridged (mt. to mt.)- the dough is starting to take shape.
- Alternating Arm/Leg Kicks – Stop the mat flow in downdog after a few rounds. Have them transition from there onto hands and knees and do alternating arms/ legs. Have the gingerbread men (and ladies) test out their arms and legs!
- Downdog – Switch back into downdog and have the gingerbread men build the strength in the middle of their bodies by touching knees to elbows. Do on the same side, then have them cross opposite arm to opposite knee.
- Forward Fold – Have students jump to the top of the mat from downdog. Have them slowly roll halfway up to forward fold. Have them get their arms ready to come to life by doing some stirring while in forward fold.
- Arm Swings – Have students slowly roll up to standing “one vertebrae at a time”. Have them inhale as their arms go up (tell them “palms face up”) and exhale as their arms go down. WE’RE ALIVE!!!!!!!
- Cat/Cow – Oh no! The cat and the cow want to eat us!!!
- Run in Place – run to the gingerbread house. Stick your feet into the frosting to stand up in it. Stand tall and strong- we’re not afraid of the cat and cow!
- Mountain + Check – Let’s see how glued your feet are to the house. Make sure to ask each student before touching them. There’s a knock on the door… “Who is it?” “It’s me- the big bad wolf. Little pig, little pig, let me in!” Oops, wrong story!
- Side Angle – “We have to sneak out the window and escape to our spaceship- it will take us to gingerbread planet where nobody wants to eat us. So, first put your body like this (do star), then go out the window like this (do side angle). We all need to work together to get to our planet. The electricity from our bodies will fuel our ship, but we need every single gingerbread person here to make it work.
- UFO Ball – show the students that if even one person let’s go of a hand, the UFO ball won’t work. So, we need everyone’s help to get to our home planet. Hands behind the back link and back bend (this is a kaleidoscope yoga move). We did it!!!! We’re home safe because we worked as a team 🙂
Calm
- Relaxation Story – The story of the Gingerbread Planet. (made it up as I went along)