Instructor: Jennifer Cory
Community: Grades 2-3 after-school group, Lesson #2
Plan Creation Date: July 2012
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Stillness
Lesson Plan:
Sometimes at school we are faced with situations that cause us to feel very angry or frustrated. We all feel anger and frustration at times as they are perfectly normal emotions. However, holding in our anger or releasing it in inappropriate ways can be harmful to yourself and those around you. Expressing anger inappropriately can also affect the classroom environment and interfere with the learning of others. Today, we’re going to practice getting into a state of stillness as a means of dealing with these feelings.
Read Soda Pop Head by Julia Cook
Calm
- Belly Breaths: Observe how your body is very still right now. Put your hands on your belly and feel how you fill up your belly as you breathe in through your nose. Your breath feels like waves of the ocean filling up your belly and traveling up to your chest as you exhale again.
- Hoberman Breathing Sphere: _________ is going to lead us in our belly breathing for counts of 5. We will need someone to count at the beginning of each inhale. Students give compliments to the leader and counter.
- Pulse Count
Activate/Expand
One of the ways we combat frustration/anger is to release energy and then come back to stillness. We’re going to engage in some poses and activities to get our muscles moving and our blood pumping.
- Roots
- Tree
- Dancer
- Forward Bend
- Downward Dog
- Woodchopper
- Activate/Relax Walk
Key Phrases to help with activating and expanding: “Charge up your muscles” and “Stand like a king or queen” and “Shoot the energy out of your fingers.”
Calm
- Floor Twist
- Ask students to be completely still for 30 seconds.
- Begin relaxation story from Ready, Set…R.E.L.A.X. p. 70, Cloud of Calmness
(Variation for booster lesson: Ready, Set…R.E.L.A.X. p. 134, Get Away) - Bring your legs over to your right. Slowly sit up.