Instructor: Holly Hansen
Community: Grades 1-2, classroom, 20 minutes sitting at tables
Plan Creation Date: August 28, 2012
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Grounding
Lesson Plan:
Calm (sitting in chairs)
- Belly breathing – with a student leading using the Hoberman sphere and another student counting off number of breaths to a count of 10 while the children are sitting.
Activate (now standing)
- Upward Mountain – Stand with your feet hip-width apart and facing forward. Bring your arms up overhead with your palms facing each other as you extend your fingers. Press down in your feet, relax shoulders, lift belly, heart and head. It looks like a football touchdown!
- Chair Pose – Inhale your arms up and exhale, bend your knees as if sitting back in your chair. Lift the belly, head and heart. Feel your strength!
- Tree Pose – Stand with legs and feet together, shift your weight to your left foot and bend your right knee placing it as high up as you can on your inner leg. Feel strong like a tree to the earth. Press palms together in front of your heart to help balance. Then, stretch arms and head up like branches on a tree to the sky, while your leg feels strong and rooted to the earth. Now let’s repeat on the other leg.
- Eagle Pose – Take your right leg and cross it over your left and wrap your right arm under your left. Lift your elbows up and squeeze and spread your arms out wide like the wings of an eagle. Now let’s do the other side.
- Star Pose – Now step out with your right foot and take your arms out to the sides. Firm your muscles, spread your fingers wide and feel like a star beaming and shining.
- Warrior II Pose – Turn your left foot slightly to the right and your right foot all the way to the right. Breathe in and lift arms parallel to the floor with your palms facing down. Exhale and bend the right knee until it is right over your ankle, with the shin straight up and down. Keep both sides of your torso equally long, with shoulders directly over the pelvis. Keep your shoulders back and down. Extend out through top of head, tail, feet and arms. Let’s move into Rising Moon, so reach your front palm up to the sky and take the back hand to the back thigh and feel the stretch along your body. Now, let’s repeat on the other side
- Volcano Breath – Take a slow, deep breath through the nose and pause when the lungs are full. Bring your arms overhead and exhale and slowly “explode like a volcano,” moving arms out to the side and back together at your heart.
Calm (sitting in chairs)
- Twist – While sitting in your chair, press down through your feet and sitting bones and stretch up through your head. Put your left hand across the right knee and right hand on back of the chair. Inhale and lengthen; exhale and twist. Let’s repeat on the other side.
- One Minute Exploration – I would like you all to rest your heads on your arms and close your eyes. It’s time to think about the things you are feeling in your body. How do your toes/feet feel, your knees/legs, your belly and back, how about your arms and shoulders? Let’s tighten up our face muscles and now everyone relax them. And, take 3 long, slow breaths.