Instructor: Joan Bellontine
Community: Bodyworks, ages 5-7
Plan Creation Date: September 3, 2012
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Stillness
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Belly Breathing – with Hoberman Sphere – Volunteer comes up and holds sphere, 10 breaths
- Pulse Count – Count pulse for 20 counts, ask students what their count was
Activate
- Volcano Breath/Heart thoughts – Feel the breath rising in your body as you lift your arms up above your head, and then showering down all around you as you open your arms wide and bring them back down into prayer position. Think of a person, place, or animal you would like to send heart thoughts to and do that on the next breath. Share who they sent their thoughts to.
- Tree – Be as still as you can, standing strong. Now the wind is blowing, wave your branches and then come back to stillness. Now stay completely still as someone else tries to shake you.
- Activate/relax walk – Walk very softly to the soft quiet music. When music stops, activate into star pose.
- Mat tag – Stay on mats, when someone is tagged everyone goes into mountain pose. Feel the stillness and quiet when someone is tagged.
- Cat/Cow – Meow like a cat and moo like a cow! Cats are still when they are about to pounce on a mouse!
- Downward Dog – Relax into pose, can you be a still dog?
Calm
- Belly breathing – hands on belly for 30 seconds, sit still
- Read Mindful Moments card – Sit crossed legged with hands on knees, palms facing upward. Read a card on stillness.
- Settle deeply into your body…be still.
Tell a story/visualization – You are taking a walk in the woods with the person that you sent your heart thoughts to. You come across a beautiful bench made out of tree stumps and branches and they sit down to rest for a while. There is a beautiful breeze blowing and you can feel the wind softly blowing and it makes you feel very comfortable. As you sit quietly on the bench you notice a squirrel eating an acorn and it is only a couple of feet away from you. You must remain very still so you do not scare the squirrel away.