Instructor: Katie Diez

Community: Grades 2-6, School Setting, 30-40 minutes

Plan Creation Date: December 30, 2014

Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Grounding

Lesson Plan:

Diffuse in essential oil diffuser:  Grounding blend

Calm

  • Belly Breathing – With one student leading with the Hoberman sphere and another counting off a selected number of breaths. “Feel your seat and back of your legs on your chair. See if you can let them relax so they almost feel like they are part of the chair. Imagine that your legs are being held to the chair with pitch from a large Ponderosa pine tree. Can you imagine smelling that sweet pine pitch?”.
  • Pulse Count – “Find your pulse, and feel the beat of your heart. Picture tapping a stick against a tree and hearing the beat go all the way down through the roots, playing a rhythm for the animals who burrow in the ground. Close your eyes and count until I say stop. Ready, begin counting.”

Activate

  • Practice Body Activation/RelaxationImagine you are a strong pine tree. Activate your body and send your roots down. Shoot roots down and through your fingertips. Now imagine you are a sapling, bendy and relaxed. When I say “activate” be a pine tree. When I say “relax” be a sapling.
  • Arm Swings – Now take those arms with the roots shooting out, give them a shake and swing them up overhead. Say to yourself, “I am strong. I am in control. I can do it. I can be responsible.”
  • Chair – At the top of the arm swing, hold arms overhead with palms facing each other and go into chair pose. Lift belly, head and heart. Feel your strength! Hold for 5. Breathe in, press down through your feet and reach up to the sky while gradually lengthening and straightening your legs.
  • Mountain Pose – Turn that chair into a strong mountain. Be unmoving and grounded like South Sister that lets so many people climb her in the summer time without budging an inch.

Calm

  • Seated Pulse Count
  • Mindful Moment Card – “Remember a time when you worked very hard. Maybe you ran a race, Played in a game, or helped carry some heavy objects for a friend. Remember how tired your body was. Now think about how good it felt to lie on the ground and rest. Your body was so tired from the work that it melted into the ground. Feel it melt like that now.”
  • Progressive Relaxation – Guide the students in the progressive relaxation exercise.

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