Instructor: Tiffany Chapman
Community: Ages 4-5, School Setting, 45 minutes
Plan Creation Date: January 20, 2016
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Grounding
Additional Theme: Spring
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Intro – Ask students: Who can remember the ground rules for class? (Go over quickly)
- Theme – Introduce the theme “grounding”. Ask: “What do you think that word means?” Segue: “One way to help ground the body is through calming the breath.”
- Belly Breathing – Hoberman sphere + compliments (have a student lead and another one count)
- Rock and Roll
- Child’s Pose – be a seed
Activate
- Bridge – the earth is being warmed by the sun and starting to pop up. Have kids draw a rectangle on their feet first. Tell them that “all four corners of the rectangle need to stay on the floor for the next exercise.”
- Upward Mountain/ Crescent Moon – The seeds sprout into flowers and tilts toward the sun.
- Mountain + Mountain Check – “Let’s see how firmly your roots are anchored into the ground.” Make sure to ask each child before touching them.
- Star – “Your vines are shooting out to either side while your roots spread and grab firmly to the earth.”
- Warrior II – one of your roots is starting to bend forward while the other one is straight. Your arms stay the same.
- Mat 20 – Go through the life cycle of a flower- Mat 20 flow abridged. Mountain to mountain (mt. to mt.)
- Tree – “Now imagine you are a mighty tree. Plant your standing leg firmly on the ground. You are welcome to rest the foot of your bent leg on your ankle/calf/thigh (demonstrate as I say this), but never on your knee. That might hurt your knee. Your knee is the hole where the owl lives- don’t block it or else the owl can’t get home!”
- Eagle – Have an eagle land at the top of the tree that the owl is sleeping in (it’s daytime-good time to introduce/remind kids of the term “nocturnal”. “Have eagle give itself a BIG HUG in it’s nest. Give yourself a big hug and sit back into your nest. Keep your wings (elbows) high and feel the spreading at the back of your wings.”
Calm
- Cat/Cow – Use the analogy of the rectangle again (hands and knees are the four corners this time). Say, “all four corners of the rectangle need to stay on the ground”.
- Twist – Say, “Make sure you keep both shoulders glued to the ground. It’s ok if your knees don’t go as far as long as your shoulders are on the ground.”
- Back Breathing – Show students child’s pose first and have them try on their own. Say that we are going to be placing hands on our friend’s backs- that they need to be gentle. Say that some friends were not being gentle during last week’s back drawing. Say that this is a really fun activity, but that we will have to stop it if friends are being too rough. (Remember to acknowledge aloud students who are being gentle during the activity, i.e.- “thank-you for being so gentle with Sally, etc.”) Give them tools to set their own boundaries also. Say that if they don’t want to touch or be touched, they can just watch the other persons back rise and fall, and use the words, “I need space today.” Start at the lower back and move to upper. If they are just watching, have them watch the way the breath makes different parts of their partner’s body move. Have students breathe through their nose.
- Close Class – Have students sit up tall on their mats. Ask them to notice how their body is feeling right now and say the words silently to themselves- just notice, no talking. Take one more deep volcano breath together and say, “Thank-you for joining me for yoga friends.”