Instructor: Jennifer Cory

Community: Grades 2-3 after-school group, Lesson #4

Plan Creation Date: July 2012

Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Listening

Lesson Plan:

Possessing good listening skills plays a vital role in children’s success in school. Listening skills make up 50% of the time spent communicating with others. When a classroom environment is full of conversation and activity, it’s necessary for children to tune out distractions in order to focus on the speaker. By engaging in yoga calm activities, children will acquire some tools to help facilitate the development of good listening skills.

Read The Worst Day of My Life Ever!  OR My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook. Discussion prompts:  How does Louis get himself into trouble? How does he learn to turn things around? Why do things keep going wrong for RJ? How does he learn to overcome his problems?

As we engage in our yoga calm activities today, we’re going to spend some of our time engaged in some activities that require us to use really good listening skills.

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

  • Middle section of Yoga Calm 20
  • Plank
  • Cobra: Pretend you are a snake lying still in the grass. You are hoping to catch some prey to satisfy your hunger. You listen to detect the presence of any small animal stirring nearby. You hear a noise… repeat.
  • Trust Walk
  • Changing Channels, p. 108

Calm

  • Floor Twist
  • Ask students to be completely still and listen to the sounds around them. Encourage children to notice sounds they might not have noticed in the past.
  • Guided imagery from Ready, Set…R.E.L.A.X., Listen, p. 116
  • Bring your legs over to your right. Slowly sit up.

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