[currentuser role=”instructor_level”]
Instructor: Kiel Alward
Community: Ages?, Counseling Center Setting, 50 minutes
Plan Creation Date: February 10, 2015
Therapeutic Goals: Guide children to find stillness and experience the contrast between being activated and relaxed. Foster connection with other children in a calm and regulated way.
Props: Hoberman sphere, chimes, Mindful Moments cards, yoga mats, river rocks, Mindful Moments cards
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Stillness
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Ring Chimes – and listen for the end of the sound, focusing on stillness (kids participate and lead)
- Belly Breathing – with Hoberman Sphere (kids participate and lead)
- Community Discussion – What is STILLNESS? Why do we want to be still? Think of things in your house, in nature, at school, in your life that are still. What do we notice when we are still?
- Review of Rules – with the question of how stillness can help us follow them
Activate
- Yoga Sequence – Yoga Calm top 10, including mountain with roots and both standing and seated forward bends
- Activate/Relax Walk – having children demonstrate mountain pose and how to activate (firm muscles and focus attention), then walk around the room in a relaxed manner. Use “activate” command to guide children to freeze, firm, and focus; continue walking when they hear “relax” command; after several rounds, have children walk in a way that is both activated and relaxed, then activate into various yoga poses (tree, warrior I, warrior II)
- Discuss situations when we need to be relaxed or activated, or both together
Calm
- Back Drawing – stand in a close circle, turn to the right, and sit in a cross-legged position; place hands on the back of the person in front of you
- Rain—gently tapping on back
- Lightning—draw lightning strikes
- Draw big, puffy rain clouds
- Brush clouds away—sweeping hands across back
- Sun comes out—draw a bit sun with a happy face and sunglasses
- Place palms on back, close eyes, and feel the warm hands of the person behind you, imaging yourself in a beautiful or favorite place with the sun warming your back
- When the sun comes out, flowers begin to grow—draw a beautiful flower
- Back Breathing – pair up, one child takes child pose and the other kneels alongside and places hands on the person’s low back; child in child’s pose breathes slowly into the low back and into partner’s hands for several breaths; move up to mid back and repeat, then upper back, then switch roles
- Chime – with listening (kids participate and lead)